Behind the screens : an English woman's impressions of Japan

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BEQUEATHED TO CORNELL UNIVERSITY

Cornell University Library
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Behind the screens :an English woman's i

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BEHIND THE
SCREENS

AN ENGLISH WOMAN'S IMPRESSIONS
OF JAPAN

BY

EVELYN ADAM

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS

NEW YORK AND LONDON

ftbe IKnicfterbocfter press

1910

Copyright, iqio

BY

EVELYN ADAM

(Entered for ad interim copyright, under the title of " Behind the Shoji,'
November, igio)

%be tmfcfterbocfcer press, Hew Ifforfe

NOTE

A FEW years ago young Miss Japan, after a
**■ brilliant dSbut, with her dance card full
of conquests, announced her engagement to Mr.
John Bull. She now belongs to our family circle,
therefore, and it is only natural that we should
take an interest in her personal character. We
want to know, not so much if her smile is at-
tractive, as if her temper is good. Her taste in
dress may be very important, but the mood in
which she comes to breakfast is still more so.

Of course she is not likely to tell us herself if
she feels irritable in the morning. What she will
dwell on are her social graces and her company
manners. Her other qualities, not quite so
decorative, we will have to find out for ourselves.

One way is to read what travellers have to
say about her. But unfortunately, as a general
rule, the travellers bring back two kinds of im-
pressions — both very extreme. There are the
wild-eyed enthusiasts of the beaten track, poets

iv Behind the Shoji

and artists, who cannot see anything about her
that is not beautiful and picturesque and charm-
ing because they only stay long enough to see
the stylish and dainty outside; and there are the
incurable pessimists who stay too long and end
by seeing nothing but the curl papers.

As far as I know, the only satisfactory way to
form any real impression, not only of the young
lady herself but of her relations of the older
generation, is to avoid looking at the obvious
things but to look behind the Shoji instead. It
is inside the house, not outside in the street, that
people are most natural.

The following papers are simply the record of
the observations of six years. They do not pre-
tend to add anything to the store of knowledge
on Things Japanese, or to explain any obscure
customs, or to decide any ethical questions; they
are written with no ulterior motive — neither to
help float a loan nor to help destroy an illusion.
All that is claimed for them is a novel view-point
since it has been the general habit to observe
young Miss Japan from the outside inwards in-
stead of from the inside outwards, and if a good
many preconceived theories are shattered by their

Note v

statements, it is no more fair to blame the author
for them than it is fair to blame the chemist for
recording the results of what he sees taking place
in his test tubes and crucibles.

CONTENTS

NOTE

A few words to explain that since young Miss Japan's
engagement to Mr. John Bull it is not enough for us
to know her only as she appears dressed up and ready
for Society, but to look behind the Shoji and see her as
she really is at home ......

CHAPTER I

A BELOVED CAPITAL: ITS INHABITANTS AND
ITS VISITORS

A short description of Tokio and the reverence with which
Japanese regard even its incongruities — How the peo-
ple obey the Government and adopt uncomfortable
Western fashions — The express trains which carry
admiring visitors to the capital; their peculiarities —
A public that loves regulations — The etiquette of
travelling in Japan ......

CHAPTER II

IN PURSUIT OF PLEASURE

The Japanese enjoy simple pleasures — The Prime Minister
travels for twelve hours to see a flowering cherry-tree —

viii Contents

PAGE

Outdoor sports unpopular — Indoor amusements —
Boring geisha dances; amusing comedies; bloodthirsty
tragedies — The curious ceremony of the Cha No Yu —
Sand pictures — Hot-water worshippers and informal
bathing customs .... .18

CHAPTER III

OF INNS, HOTELS, AND THE SERVANT QUESTION

The picturesque inn, native style, and some of its discom-
forts — The pleasures of sleeping on snowy mats and
washing out of a finger-bowl in the garden — Food that
does not nourish — The "foreign style" hotel — Man-
agers of surprising meekness — The peculiarities of
Japanese maid-servants; with examples — Men serv-
ants with uncertain tempers — The unexpected
streak of treachery ...... 35

CHAPTER IV

A LITTLE KNOWLEDGE IS A DANGEROUS THING

The serious side of the Japanese — The student of English —
Strangers who ask personal questions for the sake of
practising the coveted language — The desire to write
English — Cheap schools and poor results — Some
amusing signs — Some original letters, unconsciously
funny — A manual of police conversation . . 54

Contents ix

CHAPTER V

THE PROFESSIONAL MATCHMAKER AND THE
FAMILY CIRCLE

The Nakadachi, an important person in every Japanese
community who is never heard of by the globe-trotters
— Her matter-of-fact methods — Where a bride is looked
on as a piece of furniture — How Love, shut out at the
front, comes in at the back door — Family life — A
typical household — The dull, daily round of the wife —
Some "Don'ts for young ladies" — The husband's
pleasures .... • • • 75

CHAPTER VI

A NATION OF MIMICS

Japanese talent for mimicry in manufactures — Old methods
and new — The modern school of oil painting — Shame-
less appropriators of British labels — Curious aber-
rations of taste — The tyrannies of fashion — The fad for
gigantic funerals — The fad for floating companies —
The fad for foreign style bathing suits, for photography,
for waltzing — Children brought up in English fashion
— A police-station copied from a hospital — The craze
for uniforms ........ 93

CHAPTER VII

OF SHOPS AND PUBLIC OFFICES

Shopkeepers a despised caste — Favourite tricks to avoid a
sale — The results of ordering things specially made;

Contents

PAGE

with illustrative anecdotes — The red tape of Govern-
ment offices — The difficulties of extracting a parcel
from the post-office — Postal clerks who know no
geography . . ..... 112

CHAPTER VIII

THE LAWBREAKER AND THE LAW

The dreaded Dorobo, or armed robber — A missionary lady
and a chivalrous masked man — The punctilious little
policeman and his note-book — Why are robbers seldom
captured in Japan? — The Scotchman who was advised
by the police to buy back his own stolen bicycle —
Tourists always get stolen watches back — An under-
standing between the police and the robbers; and how
the latter are appealed to through their sense of
patriotism . . .... 136

CHAPTER IX

BRIBERY AND CORRUPTION

The universal habit of present-giving in Japan — What
should be offered at the New Year and the Feast of All
Souls — A first call means a present — Students bribe
their teachers with biscuits — A person who takes a
holiday expected to return with gifts for all his
friends — How to judge a person's standing in the
community — Eggs that travel the round of a circle
of acquaintances ...... 153

Contents xi

CHAPTER X

THE IIWAKE — A " SPEAK-BECAUSE "

"The gentle art of making excuses, " as practised in Japan
— "Never lie to your friends"; but dupe the general
public as much as you like — The Iiwake (excuse) in-
tended to please, as heard in country districts — The
Iiwake used as a means of self-preservation — How
the chief of police excused the rudeness of a little
boy to an English lady — How a landlord, who was
forbidden by the authorities to let his house to for-
eigners because it happened to be near the Crown
Prince's villa in Nikko, invented a crippled aunt on
the spur of the moment . . . . 173

CHAPTER XI

CERTAIN CURIOUS CHARACTERISTICS

Topsy-turvy methods of the Japanese — A queer sense of
humour — Peculiarities of workmen — Odd conventions
of Society — The story of Hero and Leander reversed —
The queer habit of retiring or becoming ' ' Go-inky ' ' —
Strange Japanese idioms — Some pronounced national
characteristics — Curiosity — Irresponsibility — The
happy-go-lucky manner in which railways and steamers
are run ... .... 191

CHAPTER XII

THE AWKWARD AGE

Young Japan just at the awkward age — Her blundering
fingers knocking over old courtesies — Bad manners of

xii Contents

the new generation — The Japanese curse of vanity
and how we have pandered to it — Geisha and sakS
bottles burned in effigy at the New Year — Examples
of a petty spirit — Libels in the newspapers — Ingrati-
tude to Great Britain — The Decline and Fall of the
British Empire used as a text-book in the school —
— Ugly ingratitude of individuals — The results of an
overdose of success . . . 215

CHAPTER XIII

SOME OLD-FASHIONED VIRTUES

Old-fashioned virtues contrast delightfully with the new-
fashioned vices — Some noble characteristics of the ]
nation — Loyalty to the Imperial Family — A peasant
woman goes out to "worship" the Crown Prince — A
scene from a famous old play, showing the loyalty of a *
Samurai to his lord — Kindness to children — Loving
care of parents — Moliere's works suppressed in Japan
because they ridicule old age — Pretty instances of old-
fashioned gratitude .... 235

CHAPTER XIV

SOME REFLECTIONS

The Japanese people, like their Shinto gods, have two souls
— One is the " Nigi-mi-tama," the gentle spirit; the
other the " Ara-mi-tama," the rough spirit — Change
from one to the other frequent and very sudden —

Contents xiii

Country people retain all the old virtues — The village
of the gods — The people have not developed as fast as
the Government — Some amusing directions as to how
foreigners must be treated in Japan — What the
Japanese will do for the sake of their country . . 259

Behind tKe Screens

CHAPTER I

A BELOVED CAPITAL: ITS INHABITANTS AND ITS
VISITORS

CIRST impressions of Japan are always pleasing.

■*• A newcomer either steps ashore at Nagasaki,
where he is at once charmed by a delicious com-
bination of blue sea, green hills, and quaint grey
temples standing between, or else he lands at
Yokohama and immediately finds himself sur-
prised and delighted by a fantastic, busy maze of
queer, small streets, full of queer, small people
dressed in graceful robes of unfamiliar shape. But
before he has had time to improve his acquaintance
with this dainty world en miniature, the guide-
book, with an insistence and partiality unusual to
it, urges him to visit Tokio. He goes obediently —
and receives a first shock of disappointment.

2 Behind the Shoji

The beloved capital indeed differs greatly from
the other cities of Japan. It is like — really, I can
think of nothing it is like except one of those well-
bred Englishmen, who are so stiff wherJ met casu-
ally, so forbidding in public places, and who only
become interesting after they have been properly
introduced. The prevailing impression is one of
largeness, of a certain stand-offish dignity, and
above all of a curious incongruity. Proportions
never seem to match. The streets, which are very
wide, look wider still because they are bordered
by one-storied houses; the haughty public build-
ings standing beside low shanties make one think
of kid gloves and carpet slippers, or a duet for
clarinet and double bassoon, while the grotesque
chrys-elephantine figures that advertise some-
body's pills or tonic contrast oddly with the real
little people who walk past them.

Contrasts, in fact, are the chief characteristic
of Tokio. Short streets have long names; toy
conveyances move across sweeping open spaces
many sizes too big for them. The immense parks
in which the nobility and gentry drive in fine
carriages with fifteen-hand horses and five-foot
grooms are dotted over with tiny dolls' houses in

A Beloved Capital 3

which the bourgeoisie sit on their heels and sip tea.
Mediaeval moats enclosing the palace are bordered
with telegraph poles and tram lines, and fashion-
able bicyclists ride in bowler hats and bathing
drawers.

Moreover, the jarring modern note has an
unpleasant habit of intruding at just the wrong
places. An ugly chimney of some furniture man-
ufactory will belch smoke across an iris garden,
for instance, or a typewriter stand beside a pretty
lacquer table in a shop window. Personally, I
have never felt safe from sewing-machines and
shattered illusions in Tokio, except in the one
little oasis of Asakasa. This is the playground of
the poor, a dingy old pleasure temple where the
common people amuse themselves, without a
thought of their company manners, in the cosy
intimacy of narrow streets and crowded courts.
Toy-sellers set up their rainbow stalls there;
shaven-headed priests sell charms and rosaries on
the temple steps, and pigeons and babies gather
near the cake-man on the chance of being fed.
Except, perhaps, at some French country fUe it
would hardly be possible to find so many smiling
faces radiant with the exciting business of simple,

4 Behind the Shoji

pleasure. They have thrown aside, these people,
any strivings or ambitions which might interfere
with their amusement. They have purposely for-
gotten for the moment that Japan has an inter-
national position to attain and that they must
help to attain it by wearing uncomfortable things
like frock coats, and the bifurcated lower garments,
so hateful when compared with the comfortable
kimonos, and yet so unaccountably popular in the
West. Just for the day it amuses them to pretend
that life is small and dainty as it used to be long
ago before there were big, solemn, ugly aims to
think of. But they only pretend, of course — as
children do for the sake of a game. Nobody would
dream of seriously criticising a change, however
unpleasant, which a wise and maternal Govern-
ment suggests. There are no chronic "grumble-
tonians" in Japan. The Government, all agree,
must know best.

Having found by experience that the policy of
fifty years ago is out of date, that nothing can now
be gained by isolation or obstinacy, this Govern-
ment says to the people, "We are determined to
make our country — our sacred Japan — a first-
class power. What that is you cannot understand

A Beloved Capital 5

— yet. You are too ignorant — therefore you
must not even ask. You must simply leave every-
thing to us and do exactly as we tell you. And
first of all you must try and become like the
white nations as quickly as ever you can; learn
to eat what they eat, and wear what they wear,
and manufacture what they manufacture — only
manufacture it more cheaply. "

Everybody proceeds to obey at once. In any
other country the very fact of being told to do a
thing would probably make half the inhabitants
protest against doing it. Not so the Japanese.
They like to obey, in fact they clamour to obey.
Any one who has time and opportunities can look
behind the shoji and watch them doing so — and
laugh a little sometimes at the comical struggles
after new, half -understood ideas, or feel sorry now
and then at the pathetic haste with which the
simpler souls are rushing after a new civilisation
that will only make them unhappy when they
overtake it.

"Clear vision" in this case does not "go with a
quick foot, " in spite of what Stevenson says, and
only after some weeks, or even months, spent in
Tokio does the traveller realise that the guide-

6 Behind the Shoji

book was right after all; that nobody should miss
seeing the biggest experimental station in the land
where the latest innovations are being put into
practice — nobody, that is, except poets searching
for the picturesque. The beloved capital is
absolutely useless for poets. Lafcadio Hearn,
who knew every corner, said so long ago. "A
hopeless blot of ugliness on the land," he called
it. This was a bold statement — too bold — and
revenge came quick and sure. Less than a year
later the Japanese Government reduced his salary,
giving as their reason for so doing that, since he
had become a Japanese subject, he must earn
wages on a Japanese scale. I gravely doubt
whether the excuse was genuine. It sounds beau-
tifully convincing, but the Japanese always have
two reasons for their official actions. One they
display in the shop window for passers-by to
admire, and the other they drop down the well,
where Truth lives. In Lafcadio Hearn's case the
real reason for the persecution was certainly his
dig at the beloved capital, for the Japanese are
not a people who forgive easily, and he pricked
them on a very sensitive spot, almost the most
sensitive they have, except perhaps the Imperial

A Beloved Capital 7

Family. He tried to shake their pleasant feeling
of contentment about their beloved capital — in
the days before it had grown so strong that shak-
ing could not affect it. He deliberately held the
best thing they had up to ridicule. He even
attempted to dim the pride and pleasure with
which- so many of the population would answer,
when asked whence they came, "From Tokio. "
But it is comforting to know that his wicked pur-
pose was confounded, his subtle cruelty without
effect. Our Little Brown Allies enjoy the question
still and take it as a sign of polite interest rather
than impertinent curiosity, from the most casual
acquaintance. I always make a point of putting
it within the first five minutes of a conversation,
and always my reward is immediate. First, he
who is questioned smiles a pleasant smile, then
bows a deferential bow, and finally answers, with a
proud aftersmack of the lips, " I come from Tokio."
Once I used to take the answer literally — and
wonder if there was any population left for the
other cities of Japan. But now I know better.
"From Tokio" may mean "living in Tokio," —
the proudest boast of all — "born in Tokio,"
"schooled in Tokio," "temporarily employed in

8 Behind the Shoji

Tokio, " or, in its most literal sense, "just returned
from a business or pleasure trip to the beloved
capital." Those who do not succeed in getting
themselves born or employed there console them-
selves by yearly visits. Even if the journey from
their own native town is long, they do not consider
it a hardship. On the contrary, the end alone
justifies the miles, and besides, the Japanese are
inveterate travellers. Their trains, which crawl
from one end of the country to the other like little
brown caterpillars, are always full of passengers;
their villages, no matter how lacking in other
essential things, always boast a railway station
where every train on the line stops to pick up a
few peasants.

At least, to be strictly accurate, I should say
every train except one. The overland express
connecting Kobe with Tokio disdainfully races
past all unimportant townlets at the fearsome
rate of twenty miles an hour, and, as it whizzes by,
wayside station-masters come out on their plat-
forms and bow deferentially, much impressed by
its speed and its ultimate destination.

Physically, however, this Japanese equivalent
of our "Flying Scotchman" is very disappointing.

A Beloved Capital 9

An ordinary little engine and some very ordinary
little cars bump along over tracks too narrow for
comfort. Outside they look cramped, inside they
feel cramped. Corridors seem built for thin trip-
pers only; seats are the width of a pew in Barrie's
"Auld Licht Kirke"; sleeping compartments are
little pens the size of packing cases — in which an
inhuman guard packs four "separate and divided
entities," without regard to age, sex, or social
position. Futhermore, all the small luxuries
which our travellers look upon as necessities are
conspicuous by their absence. There are no
lamps for reading, no facilities for writing, no
tables for card-playing, no furniture or conven-
iences of any kind except rows of aluminium
spittoons — and yet this express corresponds to
what in any other country would be the train
de luxe.

One consolation is that Japanese travellers pay
very little for the bad accommodation. Railway
fares all over the country are absurdly cheap. A
first-class express ticket for a journey of 250 miles
costs about £1; a second-class ticket about half
that sum; a third-class ticket considerably less —
even with the new war tax added. Regulations

io Behind the Shoji

and notices, which the Japanese like as much as
the Germans do, are included free of charge.

It is amusing to see how thoroughly this harm-
less national foible has been humoured in the
stations, for instance. Everything in sight is
labelled — even the most obvious things — the
station itself first of all, the station-master, the
pump, the way out, the way in, the next stopping-
place, the drinking-fountain, and the nearest
bench. Then, lest some point still remain hazy,
the station-master combines a Question Bureau
with his other functions. He even has — at least
a sign says he has — some English at his com-
mand for the benefit of European globe-trotters.
But in reality his English commands him and
he is the servant of a few phrases which some-
times play him impish tricks. Suppose I ask
him if the next train is due at five o'clock, he
invariably answers, "Yes, in five minutes," no
matter at what time I put my question. The little
man's word combinations I find appear and re-
appear not as the natural result of questions at
all, but in prescribed order, like the figures in
a kaleidoscope.

He spends his spare moments between trains

A Beloved Capital n

laboriously adding to his knowledge, and during
these seasons of concentration there is but one
way to draw him from his pigeon-hole and his
dictionary. That is to try and cross to the oppo-
site platform by the simple method of running over
the tracks instead of the complicated one of going
round* by the overhead bridge provided for the
purpose. With no train in sight I always feel an
irresistible temptation towards the short cut. The
long climb up and down two tiresome flights of
steps is thereby avoided, and surely nothing can
be simpler than to outwit the absorbed scholar.
But I find myself mistaken. The Eye of the Law
is evidently constructed on the principle of the
Brazilian beetle's. It has several facets, only a
few of which are employed on the dictionary. One
immediately detects my first step in the wrong
direction. The Voice of the Law is raised im-
mediately in wrath and hisses "No, no, no, no,
no, " in my ear. A minute more and the Arm of
the Law is on mine, gently restraining. Quite a
little crowd of "Red Caps "(porters) collects, and,
frantic with excitement, they all talk at once, till
by sheer weight of words I am overcome and
abandon my evil purpose. The climb cannot be

12 Behind the Shoji

more fatiguing than the discussion, so I quietly
turn back and go over the bridge, leaving the
little station-master to resume his studies in
peace.

In the trains themselves there are just as many-
directions as in the stations. A list of Regulations
even lurks behind the seat, waiting for the auspi-
cious moment when that seat, with a volcanic
upheaval, becomes the roof of a berth, and the
occupant, as he lies helpless and horizontal,
reads:

"Passengers by their behaviours will not be
annoying other passengers. "

"Passengers will not be throwing food or other
solid articles from the windows as they be injuring
passers-by. "

"Those who have the intention" (this phrase,
like the ever-recurring present participle, is a dear
divinity) "to alight will do so when the train is
not in motion. "

Further detailed directions concern the disposal
of arms and legs. The first must not go out of
the window; the second must not go on the seats.
Last of all a sentence in italics emphatically states
that geta must be brought into the carriages. Now

A Beloved Capital 13

strangers to Japan might think this a superfluous
direction — might imagine that surely people could
be trusted to bring their shoes wherever they
themselves went without having to be reminded.
But, as a matter of fact, a Japanese and his shoes
are soon and often parted. Whenever he enters
anything — or is it anywhere? — that has a roof,
walls, and, presumably, a floor of spotless mats,
etiquette says to him, "Shoes off" — which is the
reason why in front of every temple, theatre, and
private dwelling one sees empty geta standing
beside empty elastic-sided boots. Travellers in
the early days, when railways were still new toys,
thought the same rule applied to trains, and con-
sequently left their clogs in neat rows on the
platform whence they departed, and then felt
mightily aggrieved not to find them on arriving
at their destination. Hence the notice — in case
they should forget again.

The Japanese, like every people accustomed to
a rigid etiquette which tells them what to do and
how to do it under nearly every set of circum-
stances, degenerate into rudeness as soon as an
unprovided-for combination arises. This, I think,
accounts for their discourteous behaviour when

14 Behind the Shoji

they travel in conveyances introduced so long
after their code of manners was framed. The
whistle of a locomotive seems to release them from
all obligations, and the veriest stickler for polite-
ness at other times may suddenly turn squatter in
a train, acknowledging no law but "every man
for himself and the devil take the hindmost."
He may elbow others away from the ticket-office
window; he may push into a car and spread his
rug over as much of the seat as it will cover, ar-
range bags, boxes, and baskets in a barricade at
both ends, remove his boots, blow up his air cush-
ion, and stretch himself out at full length. What
if more passengers enter at way-stations? That
is no business of his. If they are foolish enough
to board a train at the place where they happen to
be instead of the place where it starts can they
expect him to move either himself or his bags?
The proposition is too absurd to consider; he con-
siders his newspaper or his novel instead.

I remember once seeing a woman enter a first-
class car at some country town. She was evi-
dently weary. The car was full — that is, half the
seats were occupied by passengers and the other
half by their portmanteaux. Several men looked

A Beloved Capital 15

up at the intruder when she came in but none
attempted to make place for her, and she stood
meekly in a corner trying to balance herself against
the jolting, till presently, with the superior manner
of a person who goes out of his way to do a kindness
even at some personal sacrifice, one gentleman
spread a sheet of his newspaper on the floor and
motioned her to sit on it — which she did gratefully.
Another time I saw a still more audacious piece
of selfishness in a railway carriage. It was the
depth of winter, bitter weather, and our train,
though doing an all-night journey, was not pro-
vided with sleeping-cars. The travellers had
therefore curled themselves up as best they could
on the seats — all but one man, who seemed wake-
ful and uneasy. The atmosphere was becoming
too warm for his taste, still he had no wish to
lower his window and have the freezing outer air
blow directly in upon him. What did he do?
Simply waited until his neighbour on the opposite
side of the car was fast asleep and snoring, then
quietly leaned across his sleeping vis-d-vis and
opened his window. Next morning one traveller
woke refreshed, the other found himself half
buried under a light snowdrift.

16 Behind the Shoji

The frozen one seemed to accept his pneumonia
cheerfully. He had, in any case, no redress, since
there is no law, and never can be one, obliging a
person to do unto others as he would be done by.
Equally there is no law enforcing consideration for
other people's feelings in those cases where the
offender lacks similar feelings himself. If there
were, Japanese travellers would not throw their
apple parings and peach remains in the passage-
way lest they arouse the violent wrath, instead of
the silent disgust, of European fellow-passengers.
They would not overturn tea-cups or beer bottles
in the same place for the same reason. They
would refrain from diving their knives first into
the common butter-dish and afterwards into the
common mustard-pot, would treat table-cloths
destined to serve several relays of diners with a
proper respect, and avoid too-audible excursions
with their toothpicks. Last, and most important
of all, they would learn that thoughtful people in
those countries which they try to imitate never
dress or undress in public conveyances.

A Japanese thinks nothing of removing his
garment whenever he feels so inclined — at any
time and in any company — for he seems to have

A Beloved Capital 17

no instinct which would incline him to suppress
his personal affairs in the presence of others. To
quote a case in point. I remember seeing a train
waiting in the bustling station of Yokohama for
its engine. Passengers were already stepping on
board, and amongst the rest a native gentleman
of portly and prosperous appearance, who entered
a first-class carriage where several foreign ladies
were already seated. As soon as he had settled
his belongings he began disrobing. Socks, shoes,
coat, shirt, and finally even those garments which
we consider indispensable to a public appearance,
were removed and gingerly shaken out of the
window. Their owner, meanwhile, in a state of
complete nudity, stalked a flea which had been
annoying him.

Does not this little episode go to prove that
the malady of Orientalism is deeply rooted in the
heart of Japan, far more deeply than she will
allow, or than the world imagines?

CHAPTER II

IN PURSUIT OF PLEASURE

'"THERE are a few things in Japan so well worth
* seeing that most people cheerfully overlook
the discomforts of getting to 'them. Personally,
I am willing — and anybody desirous or capable of
being thrilled would be willing — to suffer many
cramped hours in company with broken egg-
shells and overturned beer bottles for the sake
of the Nikko temples, sacred Miyajima, the
ghostly feudal castle of Nagoya, Fujiyama burning
like a cone of Moxa in the sunset, or the grey
Kamakura Daibutsu smiling inscrutably under a
full moon.

But the other "sights" of the country I think
the great majority of travellers would prefer
brought to them on a tray or a tea-cup — except,
of course, the Japanese themselves, with their
talent for spreading attention and interest out thin
over wide and trivial areas. They will patiently

18

In Pursuit of Pleasure 19

visit all the insignificant temples, all the prosaic
relic collections, — whose only concession to variety-
is a helmet the more or a sword the less, — all the
unoriginal tombs. Or give them a shrine with a
nice steep ascent chosen without the least reference
to the legs and lungs of tourists, and they will
flock to it. If attached to that shrine there is an
elderly official with a talent for making them feel
utterly subservient, and a sing-song voice in
which to chant, with the indifference of habit,
many uninteresting details, so much the better.
The price of the large wooden ticket of admission
should not be more than two sen — about a penny
— as Our Little Brown Allies take their pleasures
cheaply, both from necessity and preference.
Even Japanese millionaires seldom own motor
cars! They would rather sit all day in one spot
watching a trickling waterfall in a picturesque
valley than be rushed past a dozen waterfalls.
They prefer a garden of flowering plum trees to
a yacht, or a prancing thoroughbred made of
chrysanthemums to one made of flesh and blood —
and perhaps something might be said for their
less exacting point of view. It is not only free
from extravagant expenditure but also compara-

20 Behind the Shoji

tively free from worries. Not altogether, how-
ever. When spring comes the Japanese nation is
filled with anxiety — and the newspapers are filled
with bulletins — concerning the state of the about-
to-be-flowering cherry trees. A storm at which
a yachtsman could afford to laugh would kill the
buds. A week of cold rain or wind and the worst
might happen — the pleasure of a people be damped
at one blow. But usually, to tell the truth, all
goes well; the sun knows his duty and does it.
One especially golden morning all the trees burst
into blossom as if at some mysterious word of
command — and in the Court News a paragraph
states that the Prime Minister has left for Kioto
in order to compose a sonnet 'and hang it on a
certain famous weeping cherry tree in Maruyama
Park. Imagine Asquith journeying twenty-four
hours to tie an epic to a thistle, or Lloyd George
seeking out a particular rose-bush and pinning
an ode to one of its blossoms. The very suggestion
is ludicrous! The street arabs would laugh.

And yet, in Japan, when the Financial Adviser
sips tea under the famous Wisteria Trellis at
Kameido and hangs his little couplet on to the
longest purple tassel, nobody laughs. Somehow

In Pursuit of Pleasure 21

it is not half so funny as it ought to be anyway.
Neither are the breakfast parties given at day-
break by respectable fathers of families to watch
the lotuses unfold as ridiculous as they sound.
I wonder why? Perhaps because the simplicity
and seriousness with which grown men enjoy these
childish^ things saves them from absurdity. Per-
sons who have earnestly cultivated their imagi-
nations until everything in Nature holds for them
a world of symbol and suggestion, and moats
afloat with lotus buds suggest the Infinite Mys-
teries of the soul at 5 a.m., cannot lightly be
accused of affectation or foppery.

It seems strange that among a nation of nature-
lovers like the Japanese outdoor games have
found so little favour. True, cricket and football
have been transplanted, btxt they have taken no
very deep root. Tennis is only played by school-
boys — and villainously. Polo, the sport of kings,
is entirely out of fashion. A popular amusement
of feudal times, it disappeared with the bamboo
armour and embroidered war coats.

The old indoor amusements have stuck better,
passing from generation to generation practically
unchanged. Take the geisha dances for example.

22 Behind the Shoji

The costumes are as they were in the beginning,
so is the music, and so are the gestures; the whole
performance, in fact, is air-tight against inno-
vations. Only the dancers themselves are young
— so absurdly young that one feels they should
still be going to kindergartens instead of amusing
guests at banquets. They are also quaint with
the quaintness of marionettes or coloured ivory
carvings, and their distorted posturings are
curious, even interesting, at first. But, after
a little while, they pall, like the temples and the
tombs, for want of variety. Three geishas danc-
ing three dances will bore the average European
in three quarters of an hour, and thirty-three will
bore a Royal Personage — who is proof against any
ordinary boredom — in three hours. I can vouch
for the correctness of the arithmetical progression
because it was lately proved in Tokio by a visiting
prince who left a grand Cherry Dance after the
third hour, much to the grief and consternation of
his hosts. One anxiously asked another whether
it was the combination of lobster and melons at
the dinner, or whether His Highness's Govern-
ment meant to convey a change of policy towards
Japan. The idea that their guest might have

In Pursuit of Pleasure 23

been bored in such a short time never entered the
heads of these little gentlemen, who habitually
sit at the play from noon until midnight.

It is only fair to add that the real Japanese
theatre is most interesting. I have seen comedies
written in dialects of which I could not understand
a word,- and yet laughed heartily at the lively
gestures and the wonderful skill with which an
actor contracted or expanded his face to suit the
character he happened to be portraying — making
it very short and broad for a toothless old woman,
for example, or very long and narrow for a modern
dandy. The tragedies are, perhaps, a little heavy
for our taste. No time is wasted over portraying
emotions which the characters find out in the last
act that they never had. A Japanese audience
clamours for incident and plenty of it, for un-
limited noise and a murder every now and then
to liven up the proceedings. In fact, I believe
when Hamlet was adapted for the Japanese stage
ten of the characters had to be sacrificed within
an hour. But even in the most bloodthirsty
play it was a continual delight to watch actors like
Danjuro and his friend Kukogoro, whether they
were slashing at their enemies with their eyes,

24 Behind the Shoji

like the poet's, "in a fine frenzy rolling," or
simply soliloquising to a sick child.

Danjuro, by the way, was the only Japanese
actor to receive any courtesy from society with
a capital S. He, and he alone of all his class,
succeeded in partially overcoming the prejudice
against actors — a prejudice still strong enough to
keep some old-fashioned aristocrats away from
the theatre. The Emperor and the Empress and
the Court people never go, and if they should even
"command" a troupe of players to amuse them in
the palace a revolution would certainly break out.

When Their Majesties want relief from the
cares of state a safe and simple safety-valve is,
however, at hand. They can have a Cha No Yu.
This very curious amusement was invented by a
wise emperor hundreds of years ago to dispel the
tedium of uneventful days and keep his idle
nobles out of mischief. It must have succeeded
beautifully — judging from the hours it occupies.
Moreover, nobody has the right to say, "Thank
you, we have had enough ; we find we are not very
thirsty after all, " in the middle of the performance.
Original conversation is not encouraged, and the
only remarks permissible are such as have been

In Pursuit of Pleasure 25

hallowed by years of repetition — some stiff-
necked compliments about the flower in the
Tokonoma perhaps. But really nicely-brought-up
guests find sufficient amusement in watching the
composed correctness of the lady tea-server as she
takes out of brocade bags — the very pattern on
which is fixed by inflexible rule — the hallowed
wooden spoons and bowls which appear to my
untutored eyes very like those sold in Tokio
bazaars for ten sen apiece — but are really vastly
and subtly different. As she does this she turns
and twists her wrists to the verge of dislocation.
Her fingers are pointed north or south; the right
thumb always bears a fixed relation to the left
thumb, and the position of both hands taken
together is a "seven line arrangement," like the
flowers in the vase.

To serve tea in the ceremonial manner is any-
thing but easy. Four years, experts tell me, is
the shortest time in which one could hope to
acquire any proficiency in the art; young ladies
of good family in Japan usually devote five to it.
Then, when they are on the point of leaving the
Finishing School, a great party is given, and
friends are bidden to see the results. I remember

26 Behind the Shoji

once going to one of these functions. It was a
very grand affair given at a peeresses' seminary
and heaps of people were invited. A very terri-
fying old lady, matron or proprietress, or perhaps
both — a parched and wizened person with short
hah* — marshalled us into line as we arrived, and
led us in solemn procession through cold, empty
apartments to the little tea-room where the
"sweet girl graduates" giggled gently in a corner
or screened their faces with the end of their long
sleeves to hide their nervousness. We knelt, at a
given signal, upon the mats in a long line. When
she considered us sufficiently composed, mentally
and physically, the duenna joined us. Instantly
smiles vanished from the faces of the pupils, eyes
fell, the nervous and twitching behaviour dis-
appeared; each young lady regarded the teacher
with the expression of a pretty poodle waiting for
a cue from his trainer.

She bowed, then they bowed; she glided over
to one corner; they glided too. Exactly what
went on near the little brazier I cannot say; star-
ing on such a solemn occasion was out of the
question. But presently a bowl of something
that looked like spinach soup was set down before

In Pursuit of Pleasure 27

me by a little maid in a mouse-grey kimono. The
moment she had deposited the liquid safely, she
drooped gracefully, spread out her little palms,
began gently knocking her forehead on the mats,
and refused to go away. It was most awkward
and embarrassing. I felt sure she ought to move
on to the next person, that she was delaying the
whole performance on my unworthy account, but
how was I to get rid of her? A kindly neighbour,
with a humanity foreign to the spirit of the enter-
tainment, whispered, "Bow, as she does, in
return. " So I made a most ludicrous effort to get
my nose on a level with the floor without an
undue elevation of my heels. The composure of
the assembly remained unbroken, and she moved
away to fetch more bowls and cakes of white and
green and yellow sugar. When all were served
we drank the bitter spinach-like mixture in three
loud, gurgling sips to show our appreciation and
then wrapped our cakes in the rice paper provided
for the purpose, stowing them away in pocket or
flowing sleeve, according to our costume. That
was the whole entertainment. Still enveloped in
the same subtle atmosphere of ceremony, we bade
one another good-day, complimented the school-

28 Behind the Shoji

mistress on what we referred to as the "admirable
skill of her exalted pupils," and she referred to
as "the miserable performance of my mean stu-
dents," and returned home, having had what the
Japanese consider a wildly exciting good time.

Sometimes Japanese aristocrats vary the mono-
tony of the Cha No Yu by an incense party — a
function still stiffer and more complicated. Or
their ladies meet together and make sand pictures
on lacquer trays. These, in addition to occupying
many idle hours, have the merit of being really
beautiful. It is extraordinary what dainty land-
scapes, what natural imitations of mountains and
streams and gardens and trees can be made by
the deft fingers of some quaint old professor whose
tools are an eagle's feather, a dozen little pepper-
boxes filled with coloured sands, and a few pebbles
for the wilder scenery. The class watches while
the master sprinkles, and treats not only his
picture but himself with the most profound
attention, remembering the old Chinese adage
that "Even the shadow of a teacher must not be
trodden on."

Of course the poorer classes have no money to
waste on expensive professors. What little sur-

In Pursuit of Pleasure 29

plus they have goes for sport — not sport as we
understand it, but still sport of a kind. Most of
the men are fairly good shots — with air-guns at
targets ten feet off — and into the pocket of the
keepers of shooting-galleries go the savings of
Japan. Fearful contests take place every after-
noon all over the empire at each toy rifle range;
young men and old contend for the prizes. Those
who have arrived at what we would call years of
discretion struggle the most fiercely, and smile
the most fatuously when they carry off a molasses
rat. Even soldiers throng the ' ' target shops ' ' and
fight their battles over again for some such useless,
tasteless, and sticky animal.

A small minority enjoys fishing — for fat, well-
trained carp who allow themselves to be hauled
out of artificial ponds and placed in small tubs
beside each fisherman, on the distinct under-
standing that at the end of the afternoon they are
to be thrown back into their natural habitat.
This sport is rather cheaper than the shooting.
About five sen an hour to the owner of the fish-
pond covers wear and tear, with perhaps two sen
extra for bait.

But the one amusement in Japan which every-

30 Behind the Shoji

body enjoys, rich and poor alike, is bathing.
When ill, when tired, when gay, when sociable,
whenever in fact they can, Our Little Brown
Allies pack their carpet-bags, blow up their air-
cushions, and start off for some hot spring or
another. The rich travel by train, the poor walk,
sometimes for many days, with their wives and
babies after them, till they get to some little moun-
tain village with bubbling hot springs that will
boil themselves and their eggs at the same time.
A typical bathing resort has a sulphurous
atmosphere and one street, generally steep. On
wet or wintry days this is dreary beyond words,
for all the houses look as if they were built of
cardboard and only meant — as indeed is the case —
to be used in summer and sunshine. But in the
season, July or August, everything looks delight-
fully picturesque. Then all the tea-houses are
gay with lanterns, and all the public bath-houses
resound with merry splashings. Like the Casinos
of European "Spas " these public tubs in Japan are
social centres. The poor may use them for motives
of economy, but the rich use them for the sake
of companionship. A well-to-do Japanese does
not see why his worldly goods should force him,

In Pursuit of Pleasure 31

as it were, into a privacy he does not appreciate.
Our dog-in-the-manger policy about bathing does
not appeal to him in the least. To shut oneself
up in a little room, forcibly keep one's friends out,
then jump into a tub, very probably filled with
cold water, scrub oneself painfully with a brush
or a rubber sponge, jump out again in two minutes,
rub furidusly and feel tingly for an hour, where is
the pleasure in that? He much prefers to saunter
with an acquaintance down to a big sunken tank
into which the delicious hot water runs through a
bamboo pipe, sit on the edge for a few moments
enjoying a last cigarette or cooling with a plank
the particular corner he fancies, and finally slowly
and luxuriously slip in. Meanwhile he can chat
with any acquaintances who may have begun to
boil before him, or with any passers-by who,
looking through the slats of the window, recognise
a neighbour and stop to pass the time of day.
A comical scene often ensues when the bather and
his acquaintance bow to one another. The out-
sider can, of course, put in his usual graceful
flourishes, but the insider is at a disadvantage; he
is almost sure to look like a porpoise about to dive,
and if he is not very careful his polite inquiries

32 Behind the Shoji

after the health of his friend appear only as air-
bubbles on the surface of the water.

Should anything interesting happen in the
street, the bathers slip out au naturel and watch
it quite unconcerned. I know a jolly old shop-
keeper in one sulphur village who always leaves his
little stall to be tended by his grandchildren till a
customer appears. One of them runs over to tell
him when this happens. If the deal be trifling
he shouts his price from the depths of the tub ; if
important, he climbs out of the "honourable hot
water," and either bargains serenely from the
doorway, clothed in a towel four inches square,
or comes home, a picture of ruddy contentment,
to close the matter.

The good old man is a relic of the days of
Japan's innocence, before she ate of the Tree of
International Knowledge — the days when father,
mother, son, daughter, neighbour, man-servant,
and maid-servant bathed together in a happy
family party. Nobody saw any harm in it ; it was
convenient, and it was customary and had been
done from time immemorial. The Japanese see
nothing wrong in it yet— even in this ultra-civilised
century. But tiresome Western nations do. They

In Pursuit of Pleasure 33

think the habit lacking in modesty. So the
Japanese authorities, following their usual policy,
have looked modesty up in the dictionary and
found out what it means, and immediately ordered
all the bath-houses to be divided into two compart-
ments and labelled "for men" and "for women."
Now when the obedient little Japanese wives
soap their husbands' backs and pour water over
their heads to save their lords from apoplexy,
they must scurry across when the officious little
policeman is not looking.

They do it every day, of course. I myself have
seen them very, very often. But so sensitive are
the Japanese to Western opinion that in Tokio peo-
ple become quite angry if I venture to hint that the
old sociable bathing customs prevail in the country
districts. "It is quite impossible. No Japanese
woman would do such a thing," one Japanese
gentleman told me with a very cross face. He
thought I was trying to prove his civilisation
inferior to mine* Just as soon as he was out of
sight I remembered another bit of crushing
evidence that I could have given him if only he
had lingered a moment longer. It was the exper-
ience of the modest young curate who, having but

34 Behind the Shoji

lately arrived in Japan, was shown into a hotel
bath, almost went into hysterics when the little
servant-maids offered to soap his back, and suf-
fered a shock to his nervous system (f f om which it
is doubtful if he will ever recover) when two lady
guests entered the room, bowed to him charmingly,
leisurely disrobed, and slipped into the big sunken
tub beside him. I wonder what the priggish
little man's answer would have been had he only
stayed to hear that?

CHAPTER III

OF INNS, HOTELS, AND THE SERVANT QUESTION

A LAND of travellers and trippers, Japan is also
■**■ naturally a land of hotels. In a town of a
hundred houses, thirty will be full-fledged inns,
and twenty more will be chayas (tea-houses),
which amounts to almost the same thing. In
fact, the only difference between them is the differ-
ence that exists between the chicken with one
wing and the chicken with two — the difference of
"a pinion. " Both varieties are picturesque; both
have a poetic view of a dainty garden from a
verandah so narrow that to sit there and enjoy
it is impossible; both have an unpleasant odour
of food pervading their queer passages, and both
have matted floors, papered windows, and a com-
mon bath instead of a common board. Moreover,
either will do equally well as the subject for
the home letters of foreign globe-trotters. The
clack-clack of wooden clogs on garden paths goes

35

36 Behind the Shoji

down as "musical," the constant tap, tap, tap of
the tiny metal pipe against the hibachi (firebox)
as "quaint," and the shadow pictures of the
guests silhouetted against the shoji by the light of
the tall andons (night lanterns) as "charming."

Well, so they are — for the first few days. But
when the clatter of geta sounds too often before
sunrise, when the tap of the tiny pipe just beyond
the paper partition goes on unceasingly from
dawn to dusk, and the shadows on the shoji sway
and chatter all through the round of the clock
that we are accustomed to devote to darkness and
silence, it is less easy to be enthusiastic. Famil-
iarity breeds contempt.

I can, alas! no longer look on floors of spotless
mats with my old trusting admiration. Too often
have I slept, or tried to sleep upon them, on broil-
ing summer nights, tormented from below by
those ubiquitous little creatures that hop, and
tormented from above by those still more ubi-
quitous creatures that fly. The underhand nui-
sance cannot, I find, be combated with any marked
degree of success, but the overhead plague may
be kept at a distance by a kaya. There is a
certain mystery about the name; it suggests possi-

Inns, Hotels, and Servants 37

bilities, but in reality it is nothing but a mosquito
curtain, arsenic green and about the thickness of
flannelette. A pneumonia patient might safely
take shelter under it in a typhoon for all the air
that comes through. Not that this impervious-
ness matters much in a chaya, however. If the
curtain was of tulle no air would come through
either — simply because there is none to come.
The amados (wooden blinds) which shut in the
verandahs effectively shut any stray atmosphere
out. They are a cautious people, the Japanese.
Whenever I have suggested to a serving-maid that
she might leave a crack, a little breathing hole,
in the shutters, her invariable reply has been,
"Only think if thieves should enter." "Only
think if your precautions suffocate your guests,"
I then retort. Do you suppose that the heartless
girl is impressed? Far from it. She simply shakes
her head; this lesser risk is none of her concern,
and it does not prevent her from closing up the
house hermetically.

At daybreak, just as I have grown accustomed
to do without oxygen and fallen into an uneasy
sleep, she decides that the dreadful danger of
robbery is over, takes out the fastening bar, and

38 Behind the Shoji

slides each shutter the whole length of the veran-
dah into the little box fixed in one corner to hold
the thief and draught preventers. The noise of
this operation is as the noise of thunder. All the
inn-mates are awakened and, seeing that the
bright sunshine streams through the white shoji,
there is nothing for it but to roll out of the futons
(wadded quilts) and face the problem of how and
where to wash. The common bath, though patron-
ised by the best families, is a trifle unconventional
for my taste. I accordingly decide for the out-
house in the garden, which is unsatisfactory as
regards conveniences and hardly more private.
The door has neither bolt nor lock. The basin,
a bronze finger-bowl with a wooden dipper in it,
stands in full view of passers-by, who stop and
stare with frank curiosity, their much-vaunted
manners breaking down under the unusual temp-
tation. It is not pleasant to play the part of the
monkey in the zoo, but the only alternative to
washing in full view of the public is to remain
unwashed. On no account will water be brought
into my room. Tea is the only spillable thing I
can have, and the little nesan brings me some as
soon as she has finished her tussle with the amados

Inns, Hotels, and Servants 39

and tucked the futons and wooden pillows away
in a cupboard. "Honourable morning meal au-
gustly condescend to receive," she says as she
presents me with a tray containing a teapot full
of a bitter greenish concoction, and a plate of
cakes that look like chrysanthemums, taste like
blotting-paper, and weigh like lead. These con-
stitute breakfast.

The menu for luncheon is little more sustaining.
There are, to be sure, plenty of dishes served on
little tables six inches high. But all they hold
does not make one square meal for the average
European, who can neither take walks nor do
justice to sights for any length of time on a diet
of raw fish, dried fish, steamed sea-weed, pickled
shrimps, mashed pumpkin, or even rice. At first,
perhaps, he thinks he can, but as each meal comes
round he finds himself less and less able to write
the picturesque letters for which these dolls' feasts
are such excellent subjects, till, at the end of a
month, he is scarcely strong enough to write at
all. Hollow of check and peevish of temper he
then abandons the charms and delights which,
according to Lafcadio Hearn, he ought to have
found in the chaya, and betakes himself to the

40 Behind the Shoji

"flesh-pots" once more in some "foreign style"
hotel.

The ' ' foreign style ' ' hotel has grown up specially
to provide for travellers of just this kind — men
who prefer beef to lotus bulbs, who are willing
to pay for more chairs than they can sit on, more
mirrors than they can look into, and more tables
than they can cover with the superfluous posses-
sions out of their superfluous trunks. Those in
Tokio — the hotels, not the travellers — are very
grand. I think one of them was originally in-
tended for a House of Peers or a Museum, so vast
and splendid it is, so rich in noble stairways,
covered now with grimy drugget, so gaudy in
gilding now half worn off. But those in the
country — at seaside and mountain resorts — seldom
have any architectural pretensions. Like Topsy,
they seem to have "just growed, " putting out
their arms in all directions to grasp more and more
tourists. The best part of them is the entrance —
always nobly planned whatever else is skimped.
A portico, perhaps, a verandah surely, and a
flight of steps leading from a fine sweep of drive-
way into what the Americans call a "living hall"
should go far — so the proud proprietor thinks —

Inns, Hotels, and Servants 41

to impress a newcomer. But, to make assurance
doubly sure, he fills the last three with a retinue
of servants who march out in double file, like the
supers in a circus, to meet each guest. Every-
body in the house is requisitioned for this grand
entree — even the barber — and sometimes, to add
to the impressiveness of the scene, students who
are learning English in Tokio schools are allowed
to hang about the place free during the summer
vacation on condition that they wear their school
uniform and swell the crowd.

The manager himself, wearing an expression of
perpetual bewilderment and, as like as not, a
Norfolk jacket, acts the part of ringmaster, but a
ringmaster shorn of much authority and of sur-
prising meekness. When he shows me upstairs it
is with a deprecatory gesture, as if to say, "You
who want so much will find little." I do. The
upstairs is mean — a distinct disappointment after
the grandeur of the entrance. Halls are un-
carpeted and his shuffling footsteps echo with a
low rumble, while mine shake the house. Walls
are thin, so that every word we speak, even in
whispers, reaches the neighbours. Bedrooms are
small and uncomfortably furnished. Beds are

42 Behind the Shoji

hard, pillows harder still, table-covers ink-stained,
looking-glasses like pieces of polished tin, and
wardrobes inclined to the exasperating habit of
opening as fast as they are shut.

No need for him to tell me, with misplaced
pride, that the furniture is made in Tokio — which
is ten times worse than being made in Germany.
I can see at a glance where the tables and chairs
get their weak constitutions and why they are in
their present state of gentle dilapidation. Several
damp seasons have slowly swollen their cheap
wood, unglued their cheap glue, faded their cheap
upholstery — and nobody has troubled to affix the
patch in time which might restore them to a
further career of healthy usefulness. The little
manager argues that having bought the things
he has done all that can be reasonably expected
of him. I know one hotel where the piano has
been out of tune and sticking badly since 1900.
Every time I go I ask, "Not tuned yet?" smiling
as though the joke were good. And every time
the manager smiles back with an equal conviction
of its goodness and answers, "Not yet, perhaps
next year!"

With his dilatoriness and his indecision this

Inns, Hotels, and Servants 43

man is typical of his class — impossible to get
from him a straight answer to a straight question,
still more impossible to make him exert any of the
authority he should have. Children may race up
and down the corridors during the hour of the
afternoon siesta but he never attempts to deter
them. Merry parties may sit in the bar and make
whole nights hideous with their noisy dissipations,
but even when the other guests complain he is
"very sorry," but he does not interfere. The
worst case of disorder I ever saw was the case of a
cook who got gloriously drunk and insisted upon
sitting on the front verandah after dinner, clapping
his hands and singing at the top of his lungs.
"Really, Komai San," I remonstrated with the
master of the house, "this is too much; the man
makes a quiet game of bridge impossible. Send
him away. " "I cannot, " he explained helplessly.
"The cook is a shareholder in my hotel and he
must sing where and when he pleases." So,
securely holding his shares, the cook continued
to sing, his face convulsed with sak6 and en-
thusiasm, and his body swinging in a general
gesticulation.
Japanese servants, whether shareholders or not,

44 Behind the Shoji

must, it seems, be treated with tact however trying
they may be, and often they are very trying
indeed — especially the nesans, who are usually
untidy, cross, and lazy. Yet the dear little things
have admirers that praise their kittenish ways,
their tiny hands, and even, of all things, their
artistic temperaments. A certain writer solemnly
says, "A Japanese nesan, any nesan, even one in
a hotel, will set out your hair-brushes, clothes-
brushes, nail-scissors, collar-box, and tooth-powder
tin on the average hotel dressing-table and make
a design of them, a picture, an artistic whole."
All I can say is, no nesan has ever arranged studies
of still life with the nail scissors and the tooth-
powder tin for me, though, possibly by way of
compensation, one has started little lakes of boil-
ing water on my carpet when I rang for oyu, or
toppled over the morning tea-tray and arranged
the fragments in an unconventional design on my
bed-quilt, or dragged a table, with scrapings in a
minor key, the whole length of the verandah.
If corrected roughly the maiden will first cry
and then leave. The little manager is well aware
of this — aware with all the nervous perception of
a person whom one hasty or ill-considered sentence

Inns, Hotels, and Servants 45

can throw into a situation seriously threatening
his comfort and prosperity. Hence his attitude
of habitual meekness. He dares not let his little
lecture slide over the line which divides it from
a scolding, and is careful to deliver a necessary
exhortation with a smiling face and frequent laughs
just to show that it is really not a scolding at all.

Sometimes even this is more than a servant will
bear. A lady friend of mine possessed a very
good man-servant — a perfect treasure. She hap-
pened to be an artist, and every day when she
went to paint in the woods this treasure carried
her easel. One afternoon he returned without
an important piece of it. Though greatly annoyed
she said nothing, knowing that her "pearl" was
sensitive to criticism like most of his race. But
the effort at self-control was entirely wasted as
things turned out, for the man came next day to
formally "give notice." "Why do you wish to
leave?" the mistress asked in deep distress.
"Surely you are not upset over the easel? I said
nothing about it, did I?" "No," the man ad-
mitted, "but you made a difficult face." And
he went before luncheon.

A man and his wife who were with me for six

46 Behind the Shoji

years departed at an hour's notice because I told
Madame one day that she must not throw my
sauce-pans at the head of her husband. . He seemed
almost as much upset about my refusal to sanction
her use of weapons in the marital combat as she —
queer, perverse mortal that he was. But as soon
as they made up their quarrelling in making com-
mon cause against me, I must admit that this
fighting couple had the grace to be ashamed of
themselves and their unceremonious departure.
The landlord was chosen as peacemaker. All day
long I watched him sitting about the garden in his
best clothes trying to screw his courage to the
sticking place. Then finally, when he could stand
it no longer, he came as far as my door with a
rush, entered with well-feigned indifference, and
remarked casually, "If some people desired to
come back, would you chase them away?"

The maid-servants, like all women, are proverb-
ially unreliable, but most hotels and private
houses keep them because they are gentle and
cheap — while they stay. Unfortunately, they are
particularly fond of playing the vanishing trick on
their mistresses. A lady of my acquaintance in
Tokio possessed a valuable nesan of somewhat

Inns, Hotels, and Servants 47

mature years who rejoiced in the poetic name of
"Oharu San" — The Honourable Miss Spring.
One day Miss Spring brought in luncheon as usual.
All seemed serene; there was not the shadow of a
cloud in the domestic sky. But at tea-time no
tea appeared; neither, in answer to calls at first
patient and afterwards impatient, did "Oharu."
After a time the lady herself went to the back
regions and found — desolation. The charcoal
box was filled with grey ashes, the kettle cold.
Half the luncheon plates lay immersed in a bowl
of soapy water, the other half stood on the sink
ready to be put away. Oharu herself simply
"was not." Next morning, however, she re-
appeared, very much on her company manners,
with a clean kimono and her hair done in a shining
bun to denote the state of a matron, demanding
the fragment of wages due to her since the begin-
ning of the month. The lady expostulated and
asked why the servant was leaving thus suddenly.
"Oh," replied Oharu, "just as I was washing the
plates yesterday I remembered that Saito San,
the pawnbroker, wanted a wife. Therefore I
went out and married him." Apparently this
particular pawnbroker was by way of being a

48 Behind the Shoji

Bluebeard. Seven wives he had already clasped
to his too ardent bosom, and then as soon as he
grew weary of their charms he managed to get
rid of them quite easily, thanks to the accommo-
dating divorce laws of his country, without the
fuss and muss of beheading them. Oharu knew
these circumstances perfectly, weighed the risks
well, decided to accept them, and thought —
with much good sense — that as she meant to be
wife number eight she had no time to finish her
dishes. Any idea of duty towards her employer
never entered her shining head. If the lady of
the house had been out or away, do you suppose
Miss Spring would have remained to protect the
household goods left in her charge? No, indeed,
she would have gone to the pawnbroker as serenely
and as suddenly. I speak with authority, for a
similar desertion once occurred in my own bird-
cage maisonnette. Last summer, when Tokio
felt as hot as the inside of a kettle, I decided to
take a little holiday in the coolness of the hills,
leaving in charge of my domain a plump, nice-
looking woman of over thirty. She seemed, in her
simple, faithful way, to adore me, and almost
wept because I refused to allow her to walk six

Inns, Hotels, and Servants 49

miles across the city to Uyeno Station just for the
sake of standing on the platform and making
me a last bow. As I wandered among peaceful
temples in the hush of the trees my mind, no less
peaceful and serene, pictured this paragon water-
ing my flowers and feeding my goldfish. These
were indeed idyllic days, filled from morning till
night with the "peace on earth, good-will towards
men" feeling that usually only comes on rainy
Sunday afternoons. But they could not be
expected to last for ever, and at the end of the
fourth week I wrote to the paragon to prepare her
mind and the house for my return. My answer,
instead of being from herself, was written by a
friendly neighbour. It said, "Your Miss Kishi
is not at all at your house. Indeed I must tell
you that four days after you went to Nikko, Miss
Kishi left to marry a selfish (shell-fish?) merchant."
A little later I discovered that the staid-appearing
Miss Kishi was liable to these all-of-a-sudden
matrimonial flights. She had done it five times
before and all five husbands were alive.

The men-servants, I must say, when they marry,
do it out of office hours and seldom let their
domestic affairs interfere with their duties. Their

50 Behind the Shoji

manners, too, are much better than those of the
maids, and they brush their hair oftener — a
habit which is alone worth the extra wages. Their
great fault, however, is envy and jealousy of one
another. I knew a lady who had an excellent
cook — and also a jinricksha coolie of whom she
was very fond because he was an unusually willing
fellow with a bright, sunny nature. Occasionally
it was her habit to buy toys for his babies or give
him little presents of bright crapes for his wife,
which caused the cook horrible pangs of jealousy.
When the war with Russia broke out, Riki, the
jinricksha man, was sent to fight in Manchuria.
Then the cook had his innings. Never a boy came
running by with Gogai (extras) that the cook did
not make an excuse to see his mistress, and never
did he fail to slip in quite cheerfully, "The
Gogai says there has been a big battle. I am
sure Riki has been killed this time. " But, much
to his disgust, Riki finally returned alive and well
and was feasted like the hero he had proved
himself.

There is a strange, determined, treacherous
streak in the character of Japanese men — a streak
which only rarely appears, which we cannot ac-

Inns, Hotels, and Servants 51

count for, and which makes them difficult to
handle as servants. They are sensitive, and
given to brooding on imaginary insults. But their
impassive expressions make it impossible for
Westerners to guess what is in their minds. Every
one knows the story of the man-servant who had
been long in the service of a princely master and
always seemed the happiest of mortals. He
laughed when spoken to, always looked delighted
while at work, appeared to know nothing of the
troubles of life. Imagine his master's surprise
when one day, as he caught a glimpse of the man
without the fellow's being aware of it, he saw a
relaxed face full of startling misery. Hard lines
of pain and anger were written round the eyes,
making them seem twenty years older. But
when the master coughed gently to announce his
presence, at once the face smoothed, softened,
lighted up as by a miracle of rejuvenation — a
miracle indeed of perpetual, unselfish self-control.
One more true story comes into my mind d.
propos of this strange red streak in the Japanese
character. Not exactly a servant, the man con-
cerned, one Kosaku by name, was the head guide
at a big Tokio hotel. He and another guide called

52 Behind the Shoji

Tomora, who also acted as policeman, and inci-
dentally as a spy on foreigners, were constantly
quarrelling about the tips and spoil they extracted
from globe-trotters. Kosaku finally proposed re-
porting Tomora to the police authorities and so
destroying his hopes of a pension. At the end
of the year Tomora one day dressed himself care-
fully in foreign clothes, loaded a revolver, put
it in his pocket and invited the unfortunate
Kosaku to a feast at a tea-house. It was indeed
a Judas feast. The two men ate together and
drank. One after another as little stone bottles
of sak6 were emptied, the former enemies swore
in bibulous phrases that all was forgiven. To-
gether they started to return to the hotel, both
apparently full of happiness and peace of mind,
and resolved that in future they would fleece the
stranger within their gates hand-in-hand as be-
loved brethren should. Then just by the bridge
near the hotel — the untidy bridge where the
trams meet — Tomora turned like a wolf and
suddenly shot Kosaku in the neck and body —
shot with unerring aim, for Kosaku fell dead
without a moan. Tomora then killed himself on
the spot. He had not forgiven, but was there not

Inns, Hotels, and Servants 53

a supreme and cruel treachery in spending his last
earthly hours making merry with his victim?
PoorKosaku! He had just succeeded inlaying up
for himself treasure upon earth to the amount of
twenty thousand yen — and he lost his life because
his last and richest globe-trotter bought a seven
hundred yen lantern through Tomora, and Kosaku,
in his greed, demanded from the younger guide the
twenty yen commission which the merchant paid
to him.

CHAPTER IV

A LITTLE KNOWLEDGE IS A DANGEROUS THING

IT would be quite wrong to give the impression
■*■ that Our Little Brown Allies are inconsequent
mortals, always in pursuit of pleasure, when one of
their greatest qualities — the one, in fact, to which
they owe all their success — is a faculty for patient
plodding, equally admirable and equally boring,
whether it be applied to sweet potatoes or to
Schopenhauer. Not that it is usually wasted on
either. No, indeed! The great and serious ma-
jority of the Japanese nation pays us the delicate
compliment of devoting its energies to acquiring
our language. According to the latest census
eight ninths of the able-bodied population is now
doing this. I can quite believe it, for never have
I found a corner of the Empire where one might
consider oneself safe from the "English student"
who accents himself on the last syllable as if he
rhymed with "Solent." He lurks in trains and

54

A Little Knowledge 55

trams, he haunts hotels and shops, he hangs about
street corners waiting, like a cunning spider, to
enmesh some innocent foreign victim in a web of
conversation.

"How is your health?" suddenly inquires the
knock-kneed youth whose bundle I have just
asked the driver to remove from a seat in the basha
(omnibus). Naturally I am a little stunned by
this total stranger's bold dive into personal waters,
and my answer is accordingly monosyllabic and
delivered in a tone several degrees below zero.
But he is not in the least snubbed; he scarcely
hears the chilling reply for, while it is being
impressively delivered, his next question is slowly
and painfully evolving. As soon as the process
is complete I know it, even before he opens his
lips to speak, by the ecstatic light on his face —
the "I 've-caught-him-and-he-can't-escape" ex-
pression in his eye.

"What is your age?" he presently inquires,
glowing a little with conscious pride, and I stare
harder still. This catechism is becoming a nui-
sance, and I secretly determine to write to the
papers and suggest that persons who are wrestling
with our complicated tongue should be made to

56 Behind the Shoji

wear some sort of distinguishing medal or badge,
or even uniform — like the police, for instance —
as a warning and a protection to unsuspecting
strangers. The youth has no thought of imperti-
nence, however, no thought really of anything
beyond the launching of his little Ollendorfish
sentences which have been weeks a-building.
Fate, now personified by my humble self, cannot
harm him; he has spoken, he has enjoyed the
nameless encouragement of hearing his own voice,
and whether I answer reluctantly or not at all is
immaterial as he is not seeking information. He
merely wishes to watch the effect of his own words
upon an impartial listener. Were I to flounce
out of the car after some particular remark he
would probably never use it again. Temporarily
he constitutes me a High Court of Justice where
English is on trial; the fate of noun and verb
hangs on my actions, and I am vested with the
absolute right of taboo. Of course the responsi-
bility of the position is very heavy, but at the
same time there is a subtle flattery about It which
the poor student has to thank for his second
answer. Alas! pride proverbially goeth before a
fall. Encouraged by my reply a third question

A Little Knowledge 57

comes out painfully: "Have you a man?" — a
delicate and very Japanese way of inquiring if I
am married. This really is too much, so I retali-
ate by carrying the war into his own country and
swooping down upon him with a question of my
own, quite a simple question. Immediately his
face becomes a blank; the ecstatic light flickers
and dies out, and I can see that consternation
reigns inside his brain as this cipher message, for
which there is no key, reaches headquarters. At
last, cocking his head on one side like a sparrow,
as a Japanese so often does when puzzled or har-
assed, the student answers wistfully : " It is very
difficult. " My family, my occupation, my symp-
toms are safe after that. Evidently, from his
preoccupied silence, he is thinking the puzzle out,
and I am left in peace to consider the strange
mental equipment which enables Our Little Brown
Allies to speak a foreign language before they can
understand it. "You address them," as a Babu
traveller once said, "but they cannot address
back."

During the long summer holidays, what every
"student of English" covets is a position as super-
numerary at some country hotel, and boys of

58 Behind the Shoji

respectable families actually scramble for the pri-
vilege of rendering unto some resort any services,
however menial, in return for scanty board, bare
lodging, and the precious proximity to globe-
trotters who speak the coveted language. Have
not Japanese colonels turned barbers for less?

Sometimes the students are rewarded by a
visitor who, kinder and more pitiful than the rest,
stops and talks casually to them in the desired
tongue — thinking to pass on lightly afterwards.
He knows not what he does. Unconsciously, with
that little thin string of words, he has bound unto
himself a guide, a companion, a willing slave,
and for the remainder of his stay in the place he
is followed about so artfully, and yet withal so
cautiously, that he cannot get free.

For the sake of comfort, then, one must harden
one's hard heart to the voice of pity. I discovered
it too late — after one bitter summer in Nikko,
when a youth, who was ugly with the ugliness
that comes from too much absorption in dull
things, took it into his head to become my self-
appointed guide, and stuck to me with a pertinac-
ity worthy of his sacred cause. I tried to shake
him off, to freeze him off, to tire him out, yet he

A Little Knowledge 59

valiantly remained at my side, and all because in
an indiscreet moment I once weakly said "Thank
you" to him because he opened my wet umbrella
when I wished it left shut. Thereafter he persist-
ently spoiled the woods for me. Whenever my
soul was getting ready to soar he appeared at my
elbow, helpful as ever, anxious perhaps to take off
my boots and shoo me into some temple, or else
eager to explain why the tiger-lilies bloomed on
cottage roofs when I was content to know they
bloomed at all, or to tell just how high the hills
were when I was content to know them high
enough to prick the sky with their sharp green
points. Yet never could I be angry with him for
long, since, as soon as my wrath began to boil
and bubble over, he would cool it by some new,
touching effort to please. Or else he would make
me laugh at the critical moment as he did one
day when I inquired with nervous dread, "Have
you any rats in this hotel?" and he replied glee-
fully, his whole face lighting up with eagerness
to serve, "Oh, yes, shall I get you some?"

Another student I knew — though fortunately,
as he was busy pursuing a most satisfactory,
loud-voiced American globe-trotter, I never fell

60 Behind the Shoji

deeply into his clutches — used to stumble now
and then upon the most quaint, the most delicious
phrases. He would often improve the shining
morning hour before his prey appeared by bringing
me the news of the village. Somebody's house
"for lent," or somebody's servant had been dis-
missed because she was a " chattering-box, " or
an "Import," a person from some other village,
had arrived. "Is he a pilgrim?" I remember
once asking. " I do not know, " was the cautious
reply, "but that is my suppose." Admirable
youth, his was a character with such singular
steadfastness of purpose that in leisure moments
he would take three grammars and two diction-
aries, and, seated upon some mossy stump con-
veniently near the pantry door, disentangle the
intricacies of the verb "to be." The prettiest
girl, flitting past like some gay butterfly in her
bright kimono, was powerless to distract his
attention, and finally his companions began to
get worried over his unnatural absorption and
remonstrated with him. They used to point out
some particularly dainty maiden, and one would
force him to look up, and another would ask,
"Is she not a picture? — just like Utamaru's

A Little Knowledge 61

butterfly women. " But always the student would
shake his head sadly, saying, with a philosophy
beyond his tender years, "Women are a great
temptation to us," and turn more intently than
ever to his books.

Just for the sake of the moral it would be
pleasant to record that Otake San — such was his
name — received the distinguished success his
prodigious labour deserved. But, alas! three
years afterwards he was only selling "Kanzashi"
— women's hairpins — outside the Exhibition gates
in Tokio, having done, on the whole, neither worse
nor better than the majority of his fellow-students.
Apparently our language must be harder than
we think, or else the Japanese are not born to be
linguists, though they fondly imagine that they
are, and happily — or unhappily — for themselves
never realise their own limitations, but plod on
lumberingly for years with a high hopefulness
sadly out of proportion to results. Take, for
example, a young Japanese acquaintance of mine
who can hardly speak six sentences of laborious
English, and yet tells me, with solemn pride,
"German is my secondary language." I often
hear policemen, too, address inquiring strangers as

62 Behind the Shoji

"Sir or Madam as the case may be," looking
serenely pleased with themselves while they do it,
and many a man, before he can pronounce three
consecutive phrases of our spoken word, sets
to work to acquire what he calls the "written
language. "

"Teach us to write English, and teach us
cheaply, " is the cry of young Japanese who hope
some day to unlock the doors of Tokio officialdom
with this magic key of language. Now one may
safely economise, if economise one must, on shoes,
or sakS, or cigarettes, but never on foreign tongues
— or one defeats one's own ends, which is exactly
what Our Little Brown Allies have done. Ac-
cording to an inflexible law, supply is regulated by
demand, and when demand is for schools where
students can learn for fifty sen a month each, the
supply is exactly fifty sen worth of phrases.
Personal attention could not possibly be included
for the price, as even the poorest of teachers must
take large classes in order to keep themselves alive,
and they have no time to push or pull a backward
pupil over the rough places. If he stumbles he
must pick himself up as quickly as may be and
run after the others, extracting his fifty sen worth

A Little Knowledge 63

as best he can. The lucky youths with nimble
brains succeed fairly well; the unlucky ones, with
dull brains, struggle after them nobly but ineffect-
ually, filling as many years as they can afford with
blackboards and grammars and copybooks. Then,
having completed the course, usually synonymous
with rurming out of funds, they return for a space
to their native towns, and are welcomed as prodi-
gies by the still-less-lettered provincials. Feasts
are given them, speeches are made to them; I
should not be surprised if in the more enterprising
districts a triumphal arch or two lent smartness
to the proceedings. And then everybody who has
a sign to be painted or a letter to be written comes
to consult the newly-returned student, who,
though he may be half taught, is always obliging
and willing, free of charge, just for the glory of
seeing himself in print, as it were, to fit out all his
relations, friends, and acquaintances with attract-
ive notices. A certain barber's sign is as good
as some of our epitaphs in country churchyards.
"Hairs shaved here. Porpoises [paupers, pre-
sumably] need not apply." The typical general
storekeeper proudly puts up "Dealer in Sack
Doods" over his door, the egg-seller "Extract of

64 Behind the Shoji

Fowl," a butcher, "Beef and Hen Met," and a
milkman paints upon his little hand-cart the
puzzling inscription, "Whole Milk," which leaves
the prospective customer to guess whether the
milk is all milk and not half water, or whether it
is wholesome.

When the returned student has connections
already in official circles he is responsible for some
such ambiguous public notices as the following:
"Take care, When Red Flag out, Brasting, " or,
"Right here. It is the way to pass." Or, when
he happens to be friendly with the director of the
local tram line, he draws up a neat little direction
like this; "Passengers are requested not to put
heads or arms out of windows for fear of injuring
passers-by." Or, if he is lower down the social
scale and his cousin is the "gentleman who does
washing" for a country hotel, he obligingly writes
out a list somewhat after this style:

"The Washermen of Kamakura hotel. Wash
List. Ladies. Dresses, Dramres, Corsets, Under
Baes [whatever strange garments those may be],
Pett Coats, Blawce [Blouse], Caps, Collars,
Sleeves, Aprons, Stockinges, Handkerchiefs."

"Male. Dresses, Chemises, Night Gowns,

A Little Knowledge 65

Dramers, Corsets, Under Baes, Pett Coats, Pett
Coat Bodices, Plawce, Sleeves, Aprons, Stockings,
Handkechiefs. "

In order to keep up the precious knowledge
gained with so much difficulty and sacrifice through
strenuous years when this amazingly beautiful
world is empty of everything to them but irregular
verbs and idiomatic expressions, the students
delight in writing letters to any one who has been
incautious enough to politely answer some of their
dull and halting conversation. I feel sure that
American globe-trotter was the recipient of a
vigorous correspondence from his student follower,
for no hopeful acquaintance is suffered to die down
because of a little matter of distance. At first,
perhaps, the student will begin warily with pic-
ture post-cards, then proceed to plain post-cards,
which during the first five years of his course
usually hold all the English he knows, and finally,
upon the slightest sign of encouragement, practise
at greater length upon his new-found friend.

Every young Japanese I ever met wrote me
religiously during the war when he was called to
serve with the colours, and either the army was
very idle or some of those young men must have

66 Behind the Shoji

shockingly neglected to keep their natural rela-
tions informed of their movements. Day after
day the postman would stagger up my hill (there
was some talk at one time of a special delivery),
and I think the neighbourhood respected me
prodigiously for my large and attentive circle of
friends. If they had only known! Three of my
correspondents were students met casually on
my travels ; one was the studious jinricksha coolie
of a friend to whose babies I once gave cakes, one
was my own former cook, one the son of my land-
lady; two, gentlemen with whom I had business
dealings — meat and grocery dealings. The only
writer of sufficient position to reflect any dignity
or glory upon me was a former head of the
neighbouring police station.

But never mind, all the epistles were gems in
their different ways, and some well worth quoting.
The cook wrote actually from the front:

"Somewhere, Manchuria.

"Respectable Lady, — It is now more than a

month since I bade you good-bye yet how far am

I from you? To tell you how I have travelled

to this part of China could be of the highest inter-

A Little Knowledge 67

est to you but I am obliged to refrain to do so at
this moment. And why? By reason of that I
may trespass the military rules. So you will have
to wait for some times.

" I will impose a duty on me that I would write
you more and more. At present I can only say
that we are in a place of as many trees as soldiers.

"As I said I can write you many pages but this
not[e] will tell you all my heart feels. I am well
and I delight in esperience. Good-by. — Yours
Very truly,

"T. Sekido."

The jinricksha coolie, garrisoned for the time in
Hiroshima, generally limited himself to post-cards,
with which he regularly announced to me the first
news of every victory, beginning with Liaoyang
and ending with Tsushima,

"My Dear," he began, unconsciously dispen :
sing with formality, — "At last We are Victory.
Throught the Empire great rejoicing over our
Victory at Liaoyang is being Exhibited. On Sun-
day night Hiroshima presented a scene never
before, the whole town ablazing with innumerable

68 Behind the Shoji

lightest lanterns and electric eluminations. Ban-
zai

i"

This was the first outburst, and the last was
written just before he left for the front, where he
died of kake poor fellow, much to his horror and
shame, for he longed to be killed in battle.

" Hiroshima, August, 1904.
"Dear Miss, — Please I beg your pardon I
did n't write you a long time letly. How are
your health? Here it is much hotter than it was
yearly therefore we have some epidemic disease
in Hiroshima and I am very glad to afford you
that a few days ago our Navy conquered the
russian fleet. "

The landlady's son surpassed himself in con-
doling and commiserating with me over the loss
of the Knight Commander.

"Tokyo Barraks.
"Dear Lady," he said, — "How do you do
these days? Pardon me that I may not visit you
letly because my father went to China and my

A Little Knowledge 69

duty is very busy and some day I will call you.
What was my surprise when I had the knowledge
of wrecked by Russian fleet (which belong Vladi-
vostock) on the coast of Izu. Indeed I am sorry
for you. But what is better there was no live
who lost.

"To according the news. They was sent to
Vladivostock I hope they are safe and sound."

The former police, inspector, my star corre-
spondent, was attached to the headquarters of
some division as a teacher or interpreter, and he
had more time — and also, being a Christian and
educated in Mission schools, more skill for longer
communications. He delighted in ethical ques-
tions, and the following letter, with its frank
scepticism about rewards and punishments, gives
a curious insight into the working of the Japanese
mind.

"To dear Miss, — I am very sorry to say I did
not write to you for all this long time, because my
wife and God have been punishing me, and I must
be very bad indeed, it has taken them so long to
get me all punished up. My wife told me not to

70 Behind the Shoji

drink ice very much in these hot days, because if I
did, I would be sick. So I drank it to see if my
wife told me the truth. At last my stomach ached
harder and harder, till I could not bear it any
longer. I must go to bed for being so disobedient
and take my punishment without complaining.
They say: 'never say beautiful till you have seen
Nikko temple.' A sight worth travelling across
the world. I longed for to see the scenery of that
place but since I have no time to get there. Now
as you are taking much pleasure in that district. I
think you have better pleasant time to see the mag-
nificent temples, the beautiful scenery of moun-
tains, rivers, lakes, falls and many hot springs.
All the nature welcome your visit. We have no
interesting news or pleasure. I am only engaging
to attend the Inglish School to teach for the
school is now going on in spite of the hot days.
When the school lesson is over I return to my
home and I confined myself indulging to spent
my time to the care of my child. He is only one
year old whom you have seen in the Shiba Park
few months ago. Lately he crawls on his knee
and speak pa-a-pa. I wish to you see again. —
I remain, yours truly, SUMIDA."

A Little Knowledge 71

But the most curious example of English as she
is written in Japan, where she is invariably written
wrong, is a little manuscript absolutely untouched
by the ruthless corrector's hand — a manuscript
of some original "Plice [Police] Conversation,"
which was prepared for an English lady, a teacher,
by one of her students who, thinking himself ripe
for authorship, had written this as a pleasant
surprise for her during the long holidays.

"Dear Miss Teacher," the accompanying
letter explained, — "You must be quite pleasant to
be inspired by natural quiteness, beauty, avoiding
from care of Tokyo where so dusty.

"I right down a few original plice conversation
which I compose for you. If it is good one arter
your severe glance, please send it to magazine. —
Your most faithfully pupil, D. Kobayashi. "

Here followed the dialogue.

Railway Station.

Policeman, May I ask you can I send my becicle
with me in this car without any fee?

7 2 Behind the Shoji

, Yes, you can send it but it is limited only one,

you must deliver it to train guards.

; Can I take my dog with me not paying extra

fee?

No, you cannot, you must pay special fee for
him, and he will be send by a small box provided
for it.

Is there some porter to carry my baggages?

Oh, I see, I shall call the Akabo (Red-cap), so
to say baggage carrier.

How much I have to pay him?

By one luggage, bag or anyother thing is 2 sen,
but for small goods by one time carrying them
the same amount of money.

I think my silk fan has been remained in the
car, what shall I do?

Wait for while, I made the station master
examine for your good.

Can it be found?

Yes, the master says it was in your car. (After
clos of examination he says it can not be found.)

How many amount I can send my goods without
paying of fee?

The weight which you need not pay fee in
addition of your personal fare is limited by the

A Little Knowledge 73

class of the ticket. [Here follows a table of
weights too correct to be amusing.]

But there is surpass from above you ought to
pay ordinary fee according to that weight.

"Why the Tokaido train does not start this
morning?

They say the rail line between and

have been damaged by undation last night (heavy
rain better?).

When will it be repaired?

The station master say if the passenger take
kuruma (jinricksha) in that interval he can travel
through the whole line.

Why the down train does not arrived by the
fixed period?

I hear that near Omari station a confliction
have took place with each locomotive and so it
will be full behind an hour.

What o'clock does the terminational train for
Yokohama start this night?

Half pass eleven o'clock sir!

May I enter to see my friend off to the platform?

No, you must get an entrance ticket by two sen.

Can you tell me is there hotel not far from
here?

74 Behind the Shoji

Do not care for it is Japanese hatel or foreign
hatel?

I don't care for it.

I think Hiroshimaya is better in this neighbour-
hood and they are rather accustomed to treat
strange foreigner.

Can I reach in time for Karuizawa's train taking
kuruma from here?

I might say probably you can get there if you
let kurumaya run in a hurry.

Gentleman, Have not your watch lost now?

Let me see, Oh, dear I could not know when I
have lost my watch.

Then I tell you a plice deteclive caught a
picpocket by the booking room and the man has a
gold watch confessing that he robbed it off from
a foreigner.

end.

CHAPTER V

THE PROFESSIONAL MATCHMAKER AND THE
FAMILY CIRCLE

A S soon as the young Japanese student has
■**• learned enough to command a position and
become a householder, his father or mother, or
both, hasten to consult the Nakadachi on his be-
half. This is the Professional Matchmaker, a per-
son of paramount influence in every community,
and one who can determine temperaments astro-
logically. The Nakadachi may be a man, but is
more often a woman, and usually a female hair-
dresser, who, by reason of her trade, has the
freedom of every house. While she twists her
customer's hair into the shining spirals which a
Japanese woman cannot arrange for herself, she
observes everything. No domestic secret is safe
from her prying eyes. Bad tempers, delicate
digestions, flighty spirits, sick bodies or sick souls,
even innocent little peculiarities, she discovers.

75

76 Behind the Shoji

But what is more disagreeable still, she comments
upon them to the neighbours. The daughter of
the Buddhist priest over the way, she probably
confides to the rich farmer's wife, is lacking in
filial piety : the young lady answers her old mother
with incredible sharpness. "How dreadful!"
replies the farmer's wife, shaking her head with the
cheerful disapproval that most of us assume when
we hear of our neighbour's shortcomings. And as
she does so she thinks complacently of her own
daughter, whom she considers a model of the
proprieties, far above criticism. If she only knew!
The Nakadachi remarks to her next customer that
the paragon is plain and passSe — information
received by this neighbour with ill-disguised
pleasure.

Thus, by playing upon the weaknesses of her
clientele, as well as by her own careful observation,
the old Matchmaker builds up her reputation.
"She knows all the houses where the families are
at fours and fives" — the Japanese equivalent of
sixes and sevens — people soon say of her, half in
admiration, half in trepidation. Mothers then
begin to try and keep on the right side of her;
fathers begin to drop into her little house and

The Matchmaker 77

make tentative remarks about wives. "Do you
know a girl suitable for my boy?" one will openly
ask, adding, "somebody with so much dowry,
hardworking, clean, honest, of such and such a
class family, and with the best of moral references "
— exactly as we do when we go to a registry office
to hire a servant. Even if the about-to-be-wedded
son is present at the interview no false modesty
complicates the arrangements. Every detail,
including the shape of the lady's nose, is frankly
discussed, and papa decides whether the family
would like it aquiline or snub, while the son
respectfully listens. "Does he never suggest his
own fancy?" I have asked, and always been told
"No." The whole affair is a simple matter of
business — the business of carrying on the family
line and providing sons to worship at the ancestral
graves. Its one redeeming feature is a total lack
of hypocrisy ; I never heard in Japan of the man
who carefully chooses an heiress and then fills
the Sunday papers with stories of how he discovers
his twin soul hidden in her bags of gold.

The Nakadachi, having gathered exactly the
kind of person required to fill the position, says
solemnly, "I will think, I will think," and forth-

78 Behind theShoji

with patters off to the house of her most likely
client. There she settles down, sips tea, and
talks for an hour about everything except what
she has really come to say — about food, weather,
and the neighbours. When she takes her leave
she probably ventures some such remark as, "You
have a daughter, have you not? And just about
the marriageable age, if I remember rightly?"
Finally, as she is slipping into her clogs at the
front door, she adds a few, a very few, words about
the son of So-and-So. Of course the hostess
knows exactly what is meant but, because it is
etiquette, she pretends utter surprise. "The son
of So-and-So? Narahodo, oh, dear me! You say
he has grown into a youth?" adding, perhaps, a
few more conventional expressions of astonishment
at such an unusual occurrence. "Yes, and a fine
youth too, " replies the old Nakadachi, after which
tactful parting shot she shuffles away — to praise
the young lady to the other side.

If both parties agree to accept her estimates of
their future connections, the maiden most con-
cerned is informed of the wedding. "You are to
be married, my dear, " says her mamma casually
one morning, "and we have chosen Saturday next

The Matchmaker 79

for the ceremony because Saturday is the birthday
of the god who presides over the horoscope of the
revered grandfather of your future husband, and
therefore a specially lucky day for the family."
On the best authority I am informed that the
young lady always answers, "Yes, mamma."
There is nothing else a well-brought-up young lady
can do — in Japan.

Two or three days before the formal ceremony
she sees her future husband, probably for the first
time, at the Miai arranged by the Nakadachi.
Miai means literally "mutual seeing," and a
thorough "mutual seeing" it is. All in their best
clothes and their best manners, the two families
drink tea together, and while the young couple
look at one another out of the corners of their
eyes with justifiable curiosity, the old ones peer
around with suspicion, ready to pick faults. But
unless something very dreadful comes to light on
this occasion — unless the bride is seen to have an
ear too few or a finger too many or the groom an
eye in the middle of his forehead — the solemn be-
trothal promise is given, and the Matchmaker
pockets her fee with a sigh of relief. At last her
trouble is over — and successfully.

80 Behind the Shoji

From our point of view the whole arrangement
seems hatefully matter-of-fact. We miss an
important wedding guest — little Love, with his
beautiful rosy wings which cover, for such occa-
sions, ugly human imperfections. He has been
left out on purpose, however. At least, the bride
has never heard of him, the groom has forgotten
all about him, and the fathers-in-law have agreed
to ignore a person whose behaviour is so uncertain.
No true Japanese parent will risk having his plans
interfered with by a meddlesome trickster without
a head for arithmetic or an eye for suitability.

On the whole their behaviour is unwise, for
Love knows very well how to revenge himself.
Slam the front door in his face, he still creeps in
the back way. Moreover, the mud of the dirty,
narrow side-lanes inevitably spatters his wings
and his shining feet are often smirched by the
foulness of the temples where Society forces him
to hide. Draggled, fighting hard for his life, he
soon loses most of his soft and tender qualities
and grows more and more to resemble his rough,
rude elder brother, Passion — which means that
he gives the community he chooses to enter many
uncomfortable moments. Perhaps he ties the

The Family Circle 81

heart of a staid, good man to a light-o'-love, inspir-
ing him with what the Japanese themselves call
the mayoi, the dreadful, reckless infatuation which
leads to a double tragedy. One reads in the papers
almost every day how some respectable merchant
has drunk poison with a famous geisha, or a well-
known banker, old enough to know better, has
tied a piece of dynamite to his waist, clasped
some unofficial inamorata in his arms and had the
supreme satisfaction of blowing up with her.

Even in my own narrow circle a case of the kind
happened. The man, son of my tailor, fell from
grace into the clutches of a pretty servant at an
inn, a clever, kitten-like creature, incapable, to
judge from appearances, of any deep feeling.
And yet, when his family bitterly opposed their
informal relationship, the pair fled one night at
the hour of the heaviest darkness, when, as the
Japanese poets say, "the river roars loudest."
They fled, as lovers will, all a-thrill with their own
feeling, careless of the feelings of others, and the
result was that the man's father, through grief
at their recklessness, grew sick and died — of a
broken heart the neighbours said, though it seems
strange that hearts should be still brittle enough

82 Behind the Shoji

to break at seventy! When the lovers heard of
what had happened the deep remorse which
follows on irretrievable mistakes touched their
hearts. "Ay, ay, we have killed him," they said to
one another, "we have killed a good old man" —
whereupon, as an atonement, they went to the
graveyard in which he was buried and committed
suicide on his tomb. The idea was doubtless
praiseworthy, but all the pair really succeeded in
proving was an extra expense to the family.

This man left three small children and a genuine
wife to suffer, I remember, when he temporarily
mislaid his sense of duty. She never said she
thought it disgraceful the way some people acted;
she never uttered a single complaint of any kind.
Japanese wives seldom do — in fact, from the man's
point of view, they make the most perfect wives
on earth. They have no illusions; a man need
never be afraid of knocking over some fragile bit
of sentiment in his own house and being made the
victim of a scene afterwards for his clumsiness.
They are beautifully subservient always, under all
circumstances. They expect little — and they get
less.

A typical household living at the corner of my

The Family Circle 83

street in Tokio will serve as an example of normal
family life as it is lived every day in Japan. I
know them well, having had exceptional opportu-
nities to observe their intimate relationships from
the inside outwards. The man is just an average
man, neither better nor worse than his neighbours,
fairly well-to-do, moderately intelligent. The wife
is gentle, modest, retiring, skilled in household
management. And there are several babies —
two of them sons — so that all is as it should be.
Every morning the husband goes off to an office
where he remains all day, while his little wife sits
at home waiting upon his aged and exacting
parents, one or both of whom always want some-
thing done for them or brought to them. At the
hour when her lord is graciously pleased to return
she goes to the outer gate and welcomes him with
great ceremony and many bows. Do you suppose
he troubles to return these pretty salutations?
Not at all. He simply gives an inattentive grunt
— though he is really quite a considerate man and
not at all an ogre as Japanese husbands go — and
hurries into the house to change the uncomfortable
foreign clothes he is obliged to wear during office
hours for his loose kimono. His lady wife hovers

84 Behind the Shoji

around him meanwhile, folds his frock coat and
lays it away, brings his obi (girdle), puts his pipe
and the hibachi (firebox) at his elbow,, brews fresh
tea for him and tells him exactly those things he
would like to hear — and those only. Not a word
about the petty tyrannies of the mother-in-law
or the impertinences of the cook. A highly-strung
brain like his — a brain valued by his employers
at exactly thirty yen per month — must be kept free
from the strain of domestic surroundings, must be
made to forget that there are such things in life
as cooks or other similar irritations. She brings
in the children to amuse him if he is in a good
humour, and for an hour he will spoil and pet
them and stuff indigestible cakes into their hands.
But of her he will take no notice, however well she
may have ministered to his comfort. Men who
are manly should not show affection to possessions
like wives, is his theory. It is a sign of weakness;
besides, it is a great deal of trouble, and if you
train them properly from the very first they do
not expect it. A wife, after all, from his point of
view, is his property — sa chose, as the French say —
something a little better than an upper servant, a
little dearer than a second cousin twice removed —

The Family Circle 85

a person who walks behind him along the street or
into a public dining-room, who carries his parcels,
and when he has a friend in to play "go" (chess)
slips in and out of the room unnoticed by either
host or guest. As a gentleman he treats her
kindly, but as a man he avoids confessing his
moral weakness by making love to her. Fami-
lies in Japan are not the place for affectionate
frivolities.

If he feels like unbending he either says to the
"Honourable Interior," "Continue, madam, to
amuse yourself by making my winter kimonos,
arranging the flowers in the alcoves, and feeding
the tame gold-fish in the garden pond. I am
going out." Or else he goes without saying any-
thing — and dines with some men friends at a
fashionable restaurant where, free from all re-
straint, the party enjoy themselves very merrily.
They eat far more than they should, and of course
so long as geishas hover about like tropical moths,
filling their wine cups, these gentlemen empty
them. The result is always the same; cheeks
grow scarlet, eyes sparkle, hands are clapped in
rhythmic accompaniment to some singer, and
finally at daybreak each man staggers home to

86 Behind the Shoji

sleep off the effects of his debauch, rolled up in his
futons (quilts) like a pig in the straw.

For two days thereafter his family is punished
for his over-indulgence. He is ruder than usual
to his wife; he is withering to his children, he is
slightly less deferential to his parents; everybody
in the house trembles, moves about on tiptoe, and
speaks in whispers. It is a state of things alto-
gether lamentable, for which we have no word
sufficiently expressive, but which the Germans
would simply call "Pfui." If it happened in our
own enlightened land a dozen societies would hold
meetings to correct it, a hundred incensed persons
would write letters to the papers on the subject and
sign themselves "One Who is Interested in the
Preservation of Morals. ' ' The Japanese, however,
are a good-natured, easy-going people who take no
pleasure in criticising the sins of their neighbours.
They do not think any the worse of a man for
getting drunk — provided he gets drunk decently
indoors and does not lower his country's reputation
for sobriety by reeling around the streets and
meeting globe-trotters. The authorities would,
I am sure, stand little nonsense of this sort.

Neither does public opinion frown upon him

The Family Circle 87

who takes unto himself secondary or even tem-
porary wives. He may have just as many as he
likes and can afford without fear of being cut by
his acquaintances or hampered in his official career.
The great Prince Ito had a little harem of eighty
pretty maidens, so the papers said, and look how
high he rose! Of course the comic weeklies had
their little joke at his expense now and then, but
on the whole people said "Lucky dog" and envied
him. There was one man in particular, also a
Government official, who was downright jealous.
His own wives were about as numerous as the
descendants of Abraham, but still somehow he
never managed to outnumber those of his col-
league, and when you come to think of it that is
enough to sour a man! Once he nearly succeeded,
but just at his proudest moment he got into serious
trouble over the jovial rivalry. It was at the
time of the Peace Riots, while the people were still
pinching and screwing and saving on account of
the war, that this gentleman happened to buy a
very successful and very expensive geisha to add
to his collection. And the people heard of the
sum he had spent on her — the patient people who
had been doing without necessities, let alone

88 Behind the Shoji

luxuries, for months. So they rose in their wrath
and went to his house and broke the windows and
set fire to the place, nearly grilling the inmates
alive.

"The nation was not protesting against the
rich man's natural wish to purchase another
beautiful geisha to add to his collection," the
Japanese who told me the story hastened to ex-
plain, for fear of being thought a prude, "but they
were angry that he should have made his purchase
just at a time of national anxiety when every one
was economising. "

How are bona fide Japanese wives, in the face
of this accommodating public opinion, to check
their husbands' merry temperaments? In the
past they have made no effort to apply corrective
measures. Their early education has taught them
never to show anger, jealousy, or grief, but when
their lords come home with spinning heads and
treat them with silent rudeness (I must say that
never have I heard of a Japanese husband of the
better class who was unkind to his wife in words)
to ask no questions, and, above, all to make no
remarks of a sarcastic, spiteful, or unpleasant
nature. Otherwise they court divorce, which on

The Family Circle 89

the man's side is fatally easy among Our Little
Brown Allies. Almost any excuse is good enough.
My milkman one day summarily bundled his
spouse out of house and home, returned her with
thanks, simply because he disliked his mother-in-
law. She was "yakamashi, " that is, troublesome,
on her visits to her daughter, also given to talking
too much. When he told me the reason why he
had broken up his home I was aghast — and said
so. "Oh, it is of no consequence, " he replied airily
as I was peering into his milk-cans one morning.
"A new wife is as easy to get as an old one to get
rid of." So the poor lady was sent back in dis-
grace to live with the. yakamashi mother and be
labelled all her life, "Not wanted in cabin. Stow
away in hold," — all for no fault of her own.

In the near future, however, I, am sure such
things will never happen. Already the Japanese
woman is as the worm that shows signs of turning.
Slowly she is beginning to change — advance as
we call it. The freedom enjoyed by school-girls
to-day is five times greater than it was two years
ago — it has become so great all of a sudden
that seven prominent female educationalists have
got frightened and issued some "Don'ts for

90 Behind the Shoji

Behaviour," which show very accurately how far
the pendulum has swung.

A rticle I. Don't have a talk with young men in
a closed room; the presence of a third party is
required.

Article II. Don't visit young men.

A rticle III. Don't see a bachelor at his lodgings
except under the guardianship of elder women.

Article IV. Don't communicate with young
men; when necessary send letters through proper
people. Don't open yourselves the letters you
have received from a stranger.

Article V. Don't exchange photos and other
articles with young men.

Article VI. Don't receive men in your bed-
room or sick-room.

Article VII. Don't go out if possible after
sundown; when necessary, be accompanied by a
chaperon.

Article VIII. Don't travel or put up in a hotel
without a chaperon.

Article IX. Don't live alone in any house
except relatives' or friends' without a chaperon,

Article X. Don't behave vulgarly towards men
taking every care in speaking and deporting.

The Family Circle 91

Article XI. Don't speak with men and receive
favours therefrom without being introduced in a
proper manner.

Article XII. Don't go near such a person or
place as may create a misunderstanding.

Article XIII. Don't take a walk or play games
with young men without a chaperon.

Article XIV. Don't see young men off or meet
them on a trip.

Article XV. Don't dress or undress in the
presence of others.

Young matrons, too, though they do not need
to be reminded like the foolish school-girls that
one may be up-to-date without dressing or un-
dressing in public, are no longer content to live
in quite the "noble seclusion" their mothers did.
It is all very well to be taken out three times a year
by one's husband to some temple festival, but
it is more amusing to drive one's self in a pretty
carriage and pair — and one bold young peeress
does it. The older generation may shake their
heads at what some of them consider immodest
if not actually indecent. She has the moral
support of a dozen princesses who order complete

92 Behind the Shoji

outfits from Peter Robinson's every year — the
very princesses whose mothers, when they sent
for trousseaux from Europe, gave directions that
the top and bottom of the box should be marked,
and, when by mistake the signs were reversed,
put on the garments in reverse order.

Poor, foolish ladies, they had no idea of being
emancipated — no conception of any attitude of
mind except one of clinging limpness to some male
relative who did not appreciate them. Fancy,
they scarcely even knew how to behave at an
official dinner-party, foreign style. But all the
same, if I were a Japanese husband I would en-
courage my wife to be as they were — yes, even to
bring home charlotte russe in her parasol and
shrimp salad in her reticule. If the men want to
continue being comfortable in the old-fashioned
way they must see to it that their women do not
learn too much.

CHAPTER VI

A NATION OF MIMICS

A NY one might think that these Japanese
** ladies, who now suddenly demand rights
and privileges, after having lived contentedly for
centuries without either, are really being educated
above the old soul-killing drudgery. But that is
not the case. They have simply had an oppor-
tunity to observe the lives of their Eurpean sis-
ters and begun to imitate them because, like dogs
that bark and bite, "it is their nature to." Our
Little Brown Allies, men, women, and children, are
a nation of such incorrigible mimics that whatever
they see the rest of the world doing they must do
also. If somebody has a Constitution, they want
a Constitution; if somebody else builds steamers,
they must build steamers; and when it rains in
London they turn up their trousers in Tokio.

The best Japanese society seriously struggles
to copy our ways and habits. I am sure the Tokio

93

94 Behind the Shoji

ultra-fashionables all read our edifying periodicals,
which tell their subscribers not to eat soup with
a sponge or place feet upon furniture. I believe,
too, that they keep a staff of special experts
scanning the society papers from London, Paris,
New York, and Vienna, just to answer those who
eagerly inquire, "What must we copy next?"

Every season these experts advise some new
fashion — they would soon lose their positions if
they suggested no novelties, as the Japanese, like
children, quickly tire of the same game and require
another — and this fashion is enthusiastically fol-
lowed — for a time. One year I remember giant
picnics, copied from America, became the rage.
Rich people gave serial outdoor entertainments
lasting for three days, at which they extravagantly
provided five kinds of food on the same plate.
Newspapers fed school children in picturesque
spots; employers arranged monster outings for
their workmen — outings so huge that a member
of the General Staff must have been borrowed to
plan the commissariat arrangements. But this
fashion lasted an unusually short time — even for
Japan. The railway officials found themselves
utterly unable to cope with the crowds who wanted

A Nation of Mimics 95

to get to the same place at the same moment,
and, furthermore, many towns seriously objected
to being flooded with the unruly population that
rightly belonged to another part of the Empire.
Enthusiasm being thus turned aside from the
fad of the year in the middle of the season, the
" experts " # could think of nothing better to suggest
than some useful imitative work on public funerals.
Compared with Ireland, as they pointed out,
Japan was rather behindhand. She had not yet
achieved anything in this line big enough to get
into the European papers, and thinking patriots
agreed that what she needed when burying her
public men was more show and less simplicity.
A special study was accordingly made of the Celtic
model with remarkably good results. Many a
man who, while he lived, had spent his unimport-
ant days behind a little cage in some Government
office became a personage — and an opportunity —
once he was dead. His family's private grief was
suitably consoled by the large palm wreaths and
floral cushions that the neighbours sent to show
their sympathy instead of the old-fashioned single
branch of Sakaki (an evergreen, meaning literally,
"God's Tree"), and the public was suitably im-

96 Behind the Shoji

pressed by the lengthy train of mourners which
even the dead man's doctors and nurses were
expected to swell.

With a proper sense of the value of contrasts,
next year the "experts" recommended something
frivolous rather than solemn — something, in fact,
to please their feminine following. A summer
number of the Sphere or the Queen, devoted to
Ostend or Margate, gave them an idea, and they
suggested sea-bathing for the ladies. But this
once the little Japanese matrons were slow about
acquiring a habit; the pleasant combination of
coldness and wetness and periodic suffocation,
which is the portion of sea-bathers, did not appeal
to them, and so, after shivering half-heartedly for
a season in weird bathing-dresses of white hand-
kerchief linen, they gave it up and took to being
photographed instead.

The craze for photography was really one of
the most popular fads that ever swept over Japan.
All classes and both sexes had their pictures taken,
not as we do, urged on by our loving family and
modestly pretending to protest, but with frank
enjoyment. The young recruit marched proudly
off in his first uniform to stand before some camera,

A Nation of Mimics 97

leaning upon the gun he had not yet learned to
load. The sailor did likewise — only he clutched
a life-buoy as the trade-mark of his calling. Civil-
ians of the "smart" variety dressed themselves
in their best and stiffest foreign clothes and re-
paired to some studio, where they sat themselves
down in ,a sanctified pose of sanctified rigidity
on a plush chair edged with bullion fringe, behind
which atrocious piece of furniture was placed —
with mathematical precision — a curtain painted
to represent a Roman ruin; the photographic
subject, if a man, who had at some time or other
enjoyed the advantages of military training, sat
at attention with eyes right; if a woman, was stif-
fened artificially by means of several iron clamps
placed along her spinal column, and told to place
her toes together, her heels apart, and one hand,
grasping a large white handkerchief, in the centre
of her lap. When every trace of individuality
was successfully suppressed, when the person's
position and face was absolutely wooden, every
muscle stiffened as if with starch, the result was
judged excellent and in perfect "foreign style."
As well as I remember, the photographic fad
was followed by the waltzing fad, which undoubt-

98 Behind the Shoji

edly had deep political significance. It was
confined to certain picked gentlemen of Court and
official circles; they took a course of correspond-
ence lessons in the art of dancing, and then, in-
structed by official circular, led out diplomatic
ladies at balls to experiment upon them. A friend
of mine was the first victim of a certain high
personage whom it would be too cruel to name.
Though in agonies at the ridiculous spectacle she
knew she was going to make of herself, she accepted
his invitation to waltz for the sake of politeness.
The couple made several false starts before the
little man confessed that he had only had six
lessons in waltzing, but still he thought he could
manage if she would count one, two, three, loudly
in his ear. It was a pity, he added, that music
meant absolutely nothing to him and he could
never distinguish the first beat of a bar from the
third. "You have a great deal of my sympathy,
I assure you — far more than you think," replied
the lady, sarcastically, as she began to count.
One, two — bang he had collided with a marble
pillar; one, two, three, he had almost overturned a
gold-laced member of the Imperial Household,
himself a little off his proper orbit. Their pro-

A Nation of Mimics 99

gress was fraught with real danger, and upon what
might have been the fate of the poor lady, had
she not tactfully persuaded her violent partner to
sit down and talk about his accomplishments, I do
not care to dwell. Next morning some Japanese
humourist wrote an amusing skit on the entertain-
ment, in which he said that waltzing reminded
him of "hopping fleas." A little vulgar, per-
haps, but very true where his countrymen were
concerned !

One of the most recent fashions among well-to-
do people in Japan is to have their children brought
up on the European plan. Rich men now confide
their offspring to British widows or maiden ladies
in order that the little ones, while still at an
impressionable age, may be brought into daily
contact with chairs and beds a,nd leather shoes.
On Sunday nights they return to Nature and the
comfort of collarless kimonos, but the rest of the
week they are rigorously subjected to all the dis-
agreeable advantages of our dress, discipline, and
sanitation. It certainly does them good. The
Japanese child, at home, is too much pampered.
As a great many travellers have pointed out,
Japanese mothers never use the paternal slipper

ioo Behind the Shoji

as a corrective. With mistaken kindness they
placidly quote the old proverb instead — "Child-
ren are far better when they are loved" — and by
loved they mean "never punished." The dear
little things must be allowed to do whatever
comes into their mischievous little shaven heads,
eat everything which they can crowd into their
quaint little round mouths, ask for anything they
happen to think of at any hour. Imagine then
what an awakening the rigime of the British
matron is to the wayward little dears — and what
a wholesome awakening! They may cry at first
for a favourite doll in the middle of the night but
finding no doting parent brings it to them they
soon cease to show their tempers.

Physically, too, as well as morally, they benefit
from this excellent fashion. Airy rooms, open
windows, ,light blankets instead of wadded futons,
which weigh upon the chest as mince pie does
on that region lower down which we consider it
impolite to mention — all these are improvements
on the Japanese house, where proper sanitation is
sadly lacking. Half the year — the winter half —
there is insufficient oxygen, and people sleep, eat,
and have their being in an atmosphere largely made

A Nation of Mimics 101

up of charcoal fumes. The other half — the hot half
— the sun and the dampness bring out smells that
show something rotten, not "in the state of Den-
mark," but in the state of drainage. Then,
above all, these little victims of a fashionable fad
have the great advantage of constantly hanging
their le*gs down from chairs instead of crumpling
them up on the floor. Legs constantly crumpled
will grow neither long nor straight — at least so
several clever Japanese doctors are preaching.
These scientific men even go so far as to state
that Our Little Brown Allies have centuries of
squatting to thank for the odious prefix "little"
which they hate so much, — the soldiers especially.
I remember how one poor battered fellow, whom
I used to see in the hospital after the war, would
forget his woes and beam ecstatically as he told
me, with pride, "Well, nobody can say I am a
little man — I have walked shoulder to shoulder
with the Russian prisoners, and you call them
big enough, don't you?"

Before the whole nation can grow, of course, the
pretty soft tatami (mats) must disappear from
the houses — and even the decree of fashion will
not easily accomplish that among all classes. The

102 Behind the Shoji

wealthy minority, however, as a. part of their fad
of imitating our habit of life, are gradually
changing the style of their dwellings. . The fine
old yashikis, set in quaint gardens, are beginning
to be considered behind the times. Whoever can
afford it to-day orders a two-story red brick or
white stucco mansion with a Renaissance portico
and a Queen Anne cupola. This atrocity is
laboriously built by a native architect. He
makes his reputation over the design — and like
as not forgets some important internal part of the
structure. Maybe it is the front staircase. A
certain promising young architect of Osaka was
known to be absent-minded about his main
staircase. But as he cheerfully got over the
difficulty every time by putting in a flight which
began in the upper broom closet and ended in the
pantry his customers never complained. They
thought it was the usual thing — in Europe.

Still more absurd was the mistake of mimicry
which occurred in a Tokio public building a few
years ago. The question of copying somebody's
police force was then being discussed. "Let 's
have the French model," said the governing
majority- A certain little official was accordingly

A Nation of Mimics 103

sent over to France to study police-stations and
all that in them is. But, unluckily, the biggest
Paris gendarmerie was undergoing extensive repairs
at the time of his visit; the Chief Inspector and
all the lesser inspectors were temporarily housed
in a hospital — with the sign over the front door
changed. They omitted to explain this to their
guest, and of course the poor little man, who had
never committed a crime or submitted to an
operation in his life, did not suspect. He observed
in good faith, just as when he reached home again
he described in good faith, and with much minute-
ness all he had seen — how the rooms were placed,
how large they were, how many of them went to
a floor. And the Japanese, painstaking as usual,
builded exactly as he described — with the result
that they presently found on their mistaken
hands a white elephant of a building suffering
from the defects of its qualities, those very charac-
teristics which made it ideal for a hospital making
it useless for a police-station. Fourteen-foot cells,
a cheerful outlook, and morning sun, only encour-
age crime.

If Our Little Brown Allies would rest content
with copying our habits and our municipal in-

104 Behind the Shoji

stitutions, little harm would result either to their
models or to themselves. But they also persist in
copying our manufactures — and in an unscrupu-
lous manner, which undoubtedly decreases their
chances of a heavenly reward. Take their silver-
ware for example They have adopted all our
shapes, and it is safe — though shameful — to state
that whatever should be solid the Japanese silver-
smiths imitate with a hollowness the more decep-
tive because it does not boldly resound. Even
those impressive dragons on their massive tea-
services — those fine, fat creatures which might
serve to advertise a patent food for infants — are
frauds. Not a hygienic diet but leaden hip pads
and bustles and stomachers produce their plump
figures. The modern Japanese artisan is growing
greedy, and his greed is undermining not only his
moral sense but his strength of mind, so he is
unable to stand up against the fatal argument of
globe-trotters' dollars and answer boldly, "I will
not make ugly slipshod things for you; rather
will I earn less and remain true to my traditions. "
What must the men who made these "traditions"
so long ago say to one another if they look down
and see the way things are going? "Not like our

A Nation of Mimics 105

times, are they now?" I can imagine one saying
to another sadly. "Always hurry, hurry, hurry,
anything to get a piece of work finished, well or
badly." "Yes, very different from our day,"
answers another. "We worked all our lives and
perhaps only turned out three or four good pieces.
But then our ambition was to produce beautiful
things — to snatch from the Gods a pinch of their
immortality — none of us cared for money. All
we needed was a perfect Lotus bud in a bronze
vase for inspiration, or a single white Morning-
Glory in an ivory cup beside us. Why, these
young fellows, if they trouble to keep a flower near
them at all, stick a ragged blossom in an old
cigarette tin. Bah, and they call themselves
artists!"

The modern school of Japanese painters is just
as slavishly imitative, with less excuse, as the
makers of umbrella handles and hair-brushes.
Hardly a man among them cares nowadays to do
those exquisite water-colour sketches of Crows
and Flies and Grasshoppers and Peonies in which
he could excel. No, his ambition is a six-foot
canvas, a life-size figure, and oils — like our Old
Masters. I remember seeing at the Osaka Exhi-

106 Behind the Shoji

bition a few years ago the first collection of home-
made oil paintings. Disillusionising is too weak
a word to describe it. One look through the door
was enough to make Hokusai turn in his grave.
Instead of those beautiful, poetic renderings of
ghostly legends with their marvellous soft "at-
mosphere" — the specialty of the old Japanese
school — I saw several rows of naked women, by
gentlemen who no doubt had studied in Europe.
Perhaps it is wrong to judge them harshly; per-
haps it was not their fault ; the Government pro-
bably ordered them to go to Paris or Rome or
Florence and apprentice themselves as palette
scrapers to some celebrity in their trade — on the
same principle that it ordered its naval officers
to go and be scullions on foreign warships and
pick up the secrets of the battleship trade. As
good citizens we must commend them for their
prompt obedience. But a good citizen is not
necessarily a good artist. Men may spend years
measuring the noses of Botticelli's women, the
hands of Da Vinci's, the hips of Rubens's, and
when they have pieced the results together and
painted them pale brown, proudly hang them in
an exhibition — without creating masterpieces.

A Nation of Mimics 107

Heaven only knows why these beginners should
further decrease their hopes of success by choosing
to paint the female nude ! It is contrary to every
canon of Japanese art; the old school dressed all
their Goddesses and Wood Nymphs and Tree
Spirits, though they did not object now and then
to painting spirited groups of fishermen or farmers
in the scanty costume befitting their occupations.
It was also — only ten years ago — contrary to the
canons of Japanese good taste. I remember when
the authorities in Kioto refused a design for a
diploma because it contained two allegorical figures
allegorically clad, and when the authorities of
Kobe actually arrested a foreign lady driving
through the streets for endangering the public
morals by allowing her eight-year-old daughter to
wear a muslin frock with low neck and short
sleeves. Yet now we see a small band of deter-
mined men, officially winked at, mercilessly
dragging the graceful kimonos off modest paint
maidens, and forcing us to look at thick ankles
and heavy bodies instead. My sympathy went
out immediately to one poor sylph awkwardly
playing with a serpent, and to another mournfully
scratching upon a violin under a blossoming

108 Behind the Shoji

cherry tree. A third, more brazen in expression,
was less appealing, as she regarded herself in a
Louis XV. mirror with unpardonable satisfaction;
but her next neighbour made me feel almost
wretched. Sitting upon a damp grassy bank
beside a tiny stream, with one arm poised airily
behind her head, she gazed out of the picture at
the staring public with eyes half bewildered, half
imploring, as though she would apolgise. "Hon-
ourably forgive me for idling in this unseemly
and foolish manner. If you will only help me
to find my clothes I will at once proceed to do
something useful. "

Oh, better far, if imitate they must, that Our
Little Brown Allies should imitate biscuits decently
clothed in tins; yes, better even that they should
put foreign labels upon them! The moral side
of this question we will not touch — nor the biscuits
either, for all their alluring pink sugar tops. It
is, in fact, a good rule for those who value their
"honourable interior" as a Japanese lady of my
acquaintance called her digestion, also to beware
of concoctions put up in bottles in Japan. Espe-
cially beware of clarets with red, white, and blue
striped labels and inscriptions in seventeenth-

A Nation of Mimics 109

century French, of sherries guaranteed from Spain,
and whiskies Scotch enough to wear kilts. Nine
times out of ten none of those liquors have even
taken a trip abroad for the sake of the label —
like rich Americans do. Trade-marks, signatures,
contents — all are copied in Tokio, and generally
copied .with impunity, for our manufacturers
seldom incur the expense or the trouble of prose-
cuting the offenders, though now and again some
determined exception fights for his principles
and his products. There was, for example, the
celebrated case of the whiskey maker who formally
complained that a certain Japanese manufacturer
was using his label, slightly altered, upon an
inferior brand of spirit. He took the case into
court and the judge patiently pointed out his
uncharitable attitude of mind. "What," said
the Man of Law, "does it matter if a Japanese
uses your label? Isn't it really a delicate com-
pliment to you? Is not imitation the sincerest
form of flattery — according to your own proverb?
Besides, when a purchaser opens a bottle of the
imitated whiskey and tastes it, he will either know
the difference or he won't. You follow me ? Well,
if he does he will be careful to buy, microscope in

i io Behind the Shoji

hand, next time; if he does n't, that simply proves
there is not enough difference between the two
articles to make so much fuss about." Un-
fortunately the British firm were unable to appre-
ciate the paternal advice and are still looking for a
judge who will agree with them.

After they find him, only a very stern ruling,
or perhaps several very stern rulings, will cure a
habit as deep-seated in Japan as this habit of
borrowing other people's property without per-
mission. It has corrupted all classes. Even the
humble "yaoya" (literally, the "seller of a hund-
red things"), who lives in my quiet street and
supplies me with vegetables and provisions, has
adopted it. Seeking one morning early to buy
a fresh melon for the breakfast-table I caught him
in the very act of fraud. His shop, thus surprised,
was all in disorder; the little counter was covered
with jars of strawberry jam, and astride of it,
among the bottles, sat a very dirty little boy with
a pot of rice paste and a pile of Morton's labels
before him. There, unashamed and in full view
of the public, he was quietly pasting them upon
the home-made preserves that still smoked in-
vitingly, while the old "yaoya" himself, the real

A Nation of Mimics in

instigator of the deception, enjoyed his pipe
unconcerned inside the shop. "How," I expos-
tulated, alarmed at seeing this child of tender
years pushed along the downward path, "how
can you permit him to do such a dishonest thing? "
"Because I am an old man and he is my appren-
tice; therefore I allow him to learn and to practise
all the profitable features of the trade," he
retorted complacently, rather proud of having
conferred on the lad the favour of an initiation in
rascally practices. Strange to say, he and his
kind never seem to realise for a moment that by
all their needless and foolish trickery they are
bound ultimately to defeat their own ends.

CHAPTER VII

OF SHOPS AND PUBLIC OFFICES

A LREADY the majority of foreign residents
•** in Japan avoid Japanese shops whenever
possible, though the Japanese shopkeeper can
undersell, because he can underlive, his white
competitors. Sometimes, however, it is actually
cheaper to pay a higher price for one's necessities
and luxuries — cheaper because of the reduced
strain upon the nervous system of the buyer.

The typical Japanese shopkeeper often sets the
calmest nerves on edge and tries the most saintly
patience. In the first place, he does not want
to keep his shop. All matters of trade and barter
being considered demeaning by his countrymen,
his attitude towards business is languidly indiffer-
ent, towards customers slightly hostile. He makes
it a rule never to urge, induce, or otherwise en-
courage any one to buy anything, and to gently
discourage if he can. The experience of a lady

112

Shops and Public Offices 113

in Yokohama, who went into a shop to look for
some expensive brocade, will serve as a typical
example of his methods. "Have you any good
brocade? " said she to a little man who came slowly
forward with an air of abstraction — as if inwardly
contemplating Nirvana and praying that he
might not be long disturbed from higher things.
"Yes, we have," he wearily replied. "Well, will
you get them out and let me see them?" "Yes,
if you are sure you want to buy!" said he with a
resigned sigh.

Personally, I have had much experience with the
Japanese "merchant" — as the tiniest shopowner
calls himself — both in Tokio and Kioto, where
foreign rivals dare not penetrate, and I have
found him a fascinating study — of inattention.
If by chance he has the particular article I am
seeking, it is too much to expect him to know its
price off-hand. The stock of his establishment
may be small and my request for a thing so com-
mon that people must be asking for it every day,
but the proprietor is obliged to hunt up its value
laboriously in a ledger, with a puzzled air as
though he had never seen it in his life before and
could not possibly guess whether it was worth ten

1 14 Behind the Shoji

sen or ten yen. I generally occupy myself during
this operation by looking around the shop, and
when he finally reappears I ask, "Have you any-
thing new since I was in here last?" Poor man,
he shakes his head more in sorrow than in anger
at my persistence. "No," he says, "I am very
sorry." But I am not to be put off so easily.
Well knowing that Our Little Brown Allies are
exceedingly clever at devising or copying novelties,
I press my inquiries in detail. Together the
proprietor and myself open drawers and search odd
corners, he reluctantly, I determinedly, till at last
we discover, carefully hidden away, something
both new and original — something which a shop-
keeper in any other part of the world would put
in his window marked "latest, fashion." But
then shopkeepers in other parts of the world pride
themselves on their pushfulness, while shopkeepers
in Japan pride themselves on their bashfulness;
the former glory in a crowd of customers; the
latter try to avoid a number of purchasers who
will all insist upon buying something. Did not
a certain silk "merchant," of whom I inquired
whether he had any more of such and such a
thing, tell me dolefully, "No, and I never shall

Shops and Public Offices 1 15

have any more, for no sooner do I get in a new
stock than it sells out directly. "

A favourite trick of little Japanese shopkeepers
to avoid the shock of a sudden sale is the remark,
"We do not keep it ready made," in answer to
the demand for some specific article. Usually
they will suggest, "You give order, we make
specially, " adding many tempting promises about
how beautifully they will do it. Anything to
gain time, anything to save immediate effort,
are the ideas at the bottom of their minds, I
imagine; anything to save the trouble of looking
through their stock, anything to get rid of the
customer temporarily, and to sink back into a
comfortable apathy.

Alas! these philosopher-merchants find them-
selves in an uncomfortable predicament when the
inevitable day of reckoning comes round and the
order so blithely undertaken has to be produced.
Left to the tender mercies of the youngest assist-
ant it is not ready at the appointed time, and
some one is put to the trouble of inventing plausible
excuses to calm the exasperated customer. Then,
when at last it is finished, it is sure to be wrong in
a dozen ingenious ways. If a garment, it is too

n6 Behind the Shoji

short or too narrow, or the wrong colours have
been used; if a piece of silver, it is the wrong shape
or the wrong pattern ; if a trunk, it is the wrong
size and costs more than the price originally-
quoted.

I remember once negotiating with a carpenter
for some simple frames. He sent me word when
they were ready and I trudged hopefully half
across Tokio to see how my pictures looked in their
new dresses. I had chosen a soft brown wood to
tone with the etchings, and explained exactly
what was wanted with what I thought extreme
lucidity and admirable patience the week before.
What did I find? Hard, heavy frames of an ugly,
dingy black. It was most irritating; but con-
cealing my vexation as best I could, I began
expostulating mildly on the fellow's carelessness,
when suddenly the cheeky young carpenter burst
into a rage and fairly shrieked at me in broken
English, "I 'vise [advise] you go back own coun-
try. Go out my shop. I 'vise you go back own
country. " As far as his premises were concerned
I took his advice and beat an immediate retreat
with as much dignity as possible under the cir-
cumstances, while that impudent little toad of a

Shops and Public Offices 117

boy continued to gibber and gesticulate until I
was out of sight. He was an exceptionally ill-
bred youth for Japan, where whatever people
think inside they keep a polite outside, but he
was not an exceptionally careless worker. In fact
he was considered so "skilful" at his trade that
he was left in sole charge of a "branch store."
The "branch store" is another of the charac-
teristic and inexplicable peculiarities of the Japan-
ese shopkeeper. His highest ambition is realised
when he succeeds in establishing a "branch" in
the next town, the next street, or even round the
corner from his "main store. " One of the biggest
Yokohama silk merchants has gone so far as to
open a secondary shop just across the road, to
the delight of the proprietor and the inconven-
ience of the purchaser who buys half a dozen
handkerchiefs on one side of the street, carries
them across in his hand, and completes his dozen
on the other. I knew, too, a case still less excus-
able — the case of a curio dealer in a little country
town of forty houses, who has opened a branch
hardly a dozen yards from his main establishment.
Why he indulged in such luxury, when he hardly
ever sells anything in his main store, he can not or

n8 Behind the Shoji

will not explain ; my own theory is that he counter-
feits in the "branch basement" to pay expenses;
otherwise, how does he escape bankruptcy?
especially as I have noticed that he is suffering
from the most acute form of the disease called
"Deterioration. "

It is a common ailment among Japanese shop-
keepers, and no doubt some day an eminent
scientist will discover that, like laziness, it is
caused by a microbe, and then invent a serum to
cure it. So far, however, neither cause nor cure
has been discovered. We only know that it may
attack any healthy shop from three to five years
after reaching maturity, and that the symptoms
may be more or less virulent, the progress of the
disease more or less rapid. The worst case I ever
knew was that of a certain shoe shop. For two
seasons before it was stricken it was exceptionally
healthy. Its salesmen and artisans were neat,
prompt, careful; they had good memories, all of
them; they even made to order satisfactorily,
and one had the most comfortable sense of security
in giving them special directions and in listening
to their promises. Then suddenly, without warn-
ing, the deadly microbe attacked this model

Shops and Public Offices 119

establishment; shortly after, it began to droop
visibly ; within a few months it was quite useless.
These same shoemakers, who once fitted so excel-
lently and finished so exquisitely, were hardly
able to put a heel in the right place, and though
after a time they recovered somewhat, the shop
never regained its original vigour. Victims of
deterioration seldom do, poor things. They are
gradually doomed to subside into a gentle insignifi-
cance as their mysterious disease develops. I
know of tailors who have gradually forgotten how
to cut, of embroiderers whose hands have slowly
lost their cunning, of photographers whose interest
and ambition have gradually ebbed away —
pathetic examples which would seem to indicate
an alarming state of affairs. But in reality that
objectionable little microbe knows very well what
it is about. At the expense of the individual it
really performs a service to Society by attacking
"merchants" who have already achieved success
and clearing the way for newcomers. Even the
microbes are patriotic and work for the greatest
good of the greatest number — in the land of Our
Little Brown Allies.

I know of but one thing more aggravating than

120 Behind the Shoji

a Japanese shop with its irritating yet laughable
peculiarities, and that is a Japanese Government
Office neatly tied up in its own particular ball of
red tape. Take the Custom House for example.
As Customs go it is comparatively harmless —
I mean with regard to duties — for except alcohol,
tobacco, gunpowder, wild animals, and a few
similar trifles, one may bring in what one likes
unmolested. There is no unholy joy awaiting the
lady who outwits the authorities by concealing
reels of silk in her husband's trouser legs — no,
the pleasures of smuggling are denied — in Japan —
to all but anarchists, tobacconists, inebriates, and
proprietors of menageries. They must, I should
imagine, form a very small percentage of the
travelling public, yet the little Japanese inspectors
live in great dread of them and dive their yellow
fingers into many a harmless box, bundle, and
package in search of whiskey, cigars, bombs, and
boa-constrictors. Not only the "Main Office,"
at one end of the wharf, hunts diligently, but a
"Branch Office" at the other rechecks the work of
the officials fifty yards nearer the steamer. Trunks
are not usually opened again, but what vexes the
Anglo-Saxon soul is the clerk's barbaric habit of

Shops and Public Offices 121

turning dressing-bags, full of bottles, upside down
while he slowly searches for his superior officer's
chalk-mark — without which that bag is considered
an illegal bag and its owner gravely suspected
of having swum ashore with it in his mouth.
"Haven't I showed it to three people already?"
says the exasperated Briton. "Do you want to
photograph it next, or perhaps X-Ray it to see
if there are cigarettes concealed in my tooth-
powder?" "I think that will not be necessary,"
is the bespectacled youth's grave answer. It is
all very well for the white man to attempt frivolity ;
the Japanese knows that his own system is right
for him; that only by this careful habit of check-
ing and rechecking, one set of checkers playing
detective, as it were, upon another, has his nation
risen superior to the slipshod, inaccurate methods
which make other Asiatic Powers so hopeless in
Welt Politik.

Still, for the most perfect example of red tape
in the world, I would not recommend the Customs
but the Post-Office in Japan. It will satisfy
the most exacting. Let any person yearning for
some occupation with a spice of excitement about
it go to Japan and get a friend in another hemi-

122 Behind the Shoji

sphere to send him a parcel while he is there; then
let him attempt to wrest from the proper authori-
ties the box, bundle, or basket which by the indica-
tions of the address should be his, the applicant's,
property. As soon as the parcel receipt reaches
him he should make up his mind to a whole day's
excursion and set out early with birth certificate,
bank book, washing list, and any other papers
which may be handy. Arrived at the Main Post-
Office he must first look for the little window
marked "Parcels" and then present himself at it
cheerfully.

"You want parcel?" says a meek, surprised
voice through the wicket.

He hands in the receipt and the little clerk
disappears to the back of his little pen, where he
collects his associates, and they all bend over
the harmless paper, pulling and pinching it and
examining it through a special Postal Microscope
for detecting forgeries. Meanwhile the applicant
is waiting and a crowd is gathering on his side of
the wicket too — a crowd of other unfortunates to
whom thoughtless friends and well-meaning rela-
tions have sent parcels. At last the little clerk
reappears, looking very grave.

Shops and Public Offices 123

"You are the addressee who expects parcel
here? Where are you living?" This is the
moment for addressee to produce birth certificate,
washing list, etc., and the Postal Officer receives
them solemnly as if they were criminal evidence,
and retreats again. Another consultation takes
place behind the bars. The addressee's patience
probably begins to wear a little thin about this
time, and he cuts short the discussion by sticking
his head as far as possible through the wicket
and calling out, "Well, where is my parcel?"
Brutal question, delivered with brutal suddenness!
This is just what the little clerk cannot answer,
and so he comes forward, looking pained and
grieved, as he scratches his head and says, "It is
very difficult." He is right — the addressee finds
it is very difficult to wait calmly ten minutes
longer and then be told his parcel is not there.

"You expect a foreign parcel," says the clerk
with the air of having made a sudden and brilliant
discovery, "therefore you make application at
next window." At "next window" the whole
episode is gone through again, and the addressee
is passed on to the Foreign Department of the
Custom House (situated a few doors off), with a

124 Behind the Shqji

copy of his receipt now — for the original is too
precious to be allowed out of the building.

Here again a rigid examination takes place.
Questions are put, extending back into addressee's
past, forward into his future. Does his present
position justify his receiving a parcel at all —
let alone a foreign parcel? Well, that depends
somewhat on the contents, and so in a side-room
both parties go through the sacred rite of opening,
and the clerk finds something very suspicious —
perhaps the latest in hair wash containing a certain
percentage of alcohol, which is dutiable, and the
rest of the afternoon is spent discussing the value
of the hair wash plus the alcohol and minus the
alcohol — in either case not more than £i . Finally,
about sunset, the addressee receives his parcel,
which in spite of its intrinsic beauty and the kind
spirit of the giver has become odious to him, and
crawls home either depressed or amused by the
experience according to his temperament.

Another excellent way to get a little excite-
ment in Japan is to attempt to cash a foreign
money order. Take to the proper department
of the proper post-office the little blue paper that
stands for riches — and await developments. Note

Shops and Public Offices 125

the pitying smile of the little clerk at any sign of
impatience on your part; listen to his halting
explanation about how in three weeks or so the
Tokio Head Office will receive a duplicate of your
paper, in two weeks more the Yokohama Branch
Post-Office will receive a copy of this copy, and
then if you will come again he will look into the
matter. But do not on any account call the man
a "silly idiot" or you will be pushing the fun too
far. In Japan there is a heavy fine for calling
Government officials "silly idiots" — a fine which
must have been specially included in the Criminal
Code for the benefit of the lawless European, as
no Japanese would dream of doing such a thing.
His ancestors, in feudal times, learned the lesson
of respect for authority too thoroughly for that.
They "wore obedience like an ornament," and
when their rulers ordered them to work from sun-
rise to sunset cultivating the rice-fields of their
betters there was no back talk about the eight-
hour day.

Naturally, after half a dozen centuries of being
told what to wear, how large to build their houses,
and how much to spend on toys for their grand-
children, any serious tendency towards individual

126 Behind the Shoji

initiative was pretty thoroughly squelched; in
time the nation actually came to love being
disciplined, and down to these modern days the
love has lasted. The big officials still run the
little officials, the little officials order about those
who are still less important, while the people are
obligingly warned and prohibited by all the offi-
cials together, including the postal clerks who
earn ten yen a month and know nothing except
the letter rate to Tokio. Why, even in Germany,
where pianos may not be played after "ten o'clock
evenings," and handkerchiefs may not be dried
on window-sills, life is in a state of reckless liber-
tinism compared to Japan, as the stranger finds
the moment his vessel drops her anchor in a
Japanese harbour. Half a dozen little men im-
mediately come on board clamouring to see his
tongue and feel his pulse, sometimes introducing
themselves quaintly as "I am the Sanitation,"
"I am the Expert Cholera, " "I am the Plague."
Woe to him if any of his fellow-passengers, shaken
up rudely twelve hours before, still retain a green-
ish complexion ! The ship will be held for a single
sea-sick Chinese emigrant. "He is a suspect,"
declares the Chief Physician. He must therefore

Shops and Public Offices 127

be isolated in the bow and sprinkled with Keat-
ing's, for he is considered guilty until he proves
himself innocent by recovering. He is excluded
from the comforts of Society, and his very foot-
print is looked on with suspicion as a possible
source of infection. The rest of the ship's com-
pany may fume and fret; in desperation they
may whisper insults about the Chief Physician —
I myself have heard exasperated ladies call him
a "little yellow monkey" before now — but he
simply takes no notice. Why should he? Do
what they will, all are at his mercy, condemned
by his lightest word to lie five hundred yards out
from their destination for two days or ten — and
he knows it. The Czar of all the Russias is only
the pale shadow of an autocrat compared to this
little Japanese "Expert Cholera."

When, later on, the stranger becomes a house-
holder in the land of Our Little Brown Allies
he realises the full extent of the Government's
grandmotherly interest in his private affairs, and
how kindly it lifts every possible responsibility
off his shoulders. For instance, the Government
fixes the exact day for his "spring cleaning,"
and on that day and no other he has to pick up

128 Behind the Shoji

his tatami (floor mats) and sweep them; on another
fixed date he is required to remove the loose boards
which form the flooring of Japanese kitchens and
show to properly-qualified inspectors the condi-
tion of the foundations. Should Japan's soldiers
win a victory, the Government tells him to hang
out flags and lanterns and exactly how many of
each to hang. Then the Government declares the
anniversary of the battle a holiday, and on that
day, whether he wants to or not, he may not
work. He must go to some park and sit on the
grass with his family under the eye of a policeman
who will send him home in time to march in a
torchlight procession.

In return for this care the Government expects
him to report himself and all that happens to his
household in the proper quarter. If he is very
poor he is required to state once a week how he
makes a living. If he has children, he is to say
so officially, and if his family otherwise increases,
say by the arrival of his mother-in-law, he must
tell that also. If he has a garden, and a blight
comes upon his plants, he must notify the Con-
troller of Gardens, who will thereupon come and
kill the rest of his plants by sprinkling them with

Shops and Public Offices 129

chloride of lime so many times a month. If he
himself has a sore throat he must hurry to the
Isolation Hospital for examination, and if he has
rats in his house he must immediately inform
the police, giving his reasons for having them,
and an accurate estimate of the number he believes
he has. , In the last-named case — a serious one
if it occurs in the hot season — he will be per-
emptorily ordered to purchase a trap or a cat
so as to decrease the chance of plague in the
community, and as a guarantee that he has act-
ually done so he is required to bring his dead
rats himself, or send them with some thoroughly
reliable person, to the District Sanitary Inspec-
tor, who will pay him two sen for each defunct
rodent.

Lest he should be remiss in his duty of acting
as an information bureau about himself, the police
come round periodically and jog his memory in
the name of the authority that must be obeyed.
This habit Europeans, who are much less law-
abiding than the natives, find so irritating that
Our Little Brown Allies have been clever enough
to modify it in their cases. A few years ago the
spying was done quite openly. A little man came

130 Behind the Shoji

to back doors then and questioned servants about
the occupants of houses. But nowadays the
inquirer's methods are much more delicate. True,
he comes just the same, but he comes to the front
door with a polite excuse about the weather on
his lips, and he talks of the rice crop, and only now
and then slips in tactful and unobtrusive \nquiries
about the visitor's business, and the probable
length of his stay in Japan — unless, of course, the
person inquired about happens to be a Russian,
when he receives special attention, and attention
thinly disguised. Have not the Russians these
last few years been the most natural people for
Japanese suspicion to fasten upon?

A friend of mine who was an attach^ of the
Russian Legation before the war used to give a
spirited description of the spying to which he was
subjected. Every morning as he lay in bed in his
little Japanese bird-cage house there came a loud
knock at the front door. It was an "open in the
name of the law" knock that sent his servant
shuffling quicky to the garden gate to bow in a
dapper little policeman.

"Master, this official has come to inquire for
you, " she then called up the tiny flight of ladder

Shops and Public Offices 131

stairs that divides the nik'ai (the upstairs) from
the rest in Japanese houses.

"Very well, let him inquire, " replied the attachS,
politely rolling over in his futons (wadded quilts)
and looking down the ladder straight into the
drawing-room. There was the policeman bowing
low.

"How is your honourable health?"

"Oh, quite well. Many thanks for your con-
siderate inquiries."

"And what is your august name?"

"My name is Radomski — the same as when
you called yesterday."

"And to what honourable nation do you
belong?"

The attachS at this dramatic point used to rise
on one elbow with a grand gesture and roar down
in the high falsetto shriek of a Japanese actor,
rolling both his eyes and his syllables fiercely,
"I am a Russian!"

At this great and damaging piece of news so
impressively delivered, the little policeman always
hurried away, but only to return next day and
ask the selfsame questions.

One afternoon this Russian gentleman, desiring

132 Behind the Shoji

to buy a wardrobe, went to an obscure little shop
to do so. As soon as he had entered the shop
the little Japanese who was shadowing, him slipped
in also. The Russian had been long annoyed by a
constant official supervision of his most harmless
occupations, so he determined to get rid of his
pursuer this time.

"Show me a tansu [wardrobe]" he said to the
shopwoman. "No, not that one, the one over
yonder, and turn it around so that I may examine
the workmanship of the back." There was a
gentle wriggle, for behind this particular chest
the spy had taken refuge. He deftly slipped to
another. The second was ordered turned about;
again the same thing happened, when he crouched
behind a third. The poor spy was growing out
of breath dodging his persistent persecutor;
flustered, too, as none of the books he had read
on "Spying" gave directions as to how to act
under such unusual circumstances. For an official
"follower" to be himself followed was' entirely
out of order. Bewildered, breathless, he took
refuge behind the last trench, or his last
tansu, and when that, too, was turned he had
to flee ignominiously, leaving the attachS alone

Shops and Public Offices 133

to complete his dangerous and treasonable
purchase.

The attachi was by no means the only one of
his nation to suffer from too much supervision,
however. Three harmless Russian professors in
a university were so pestered just before the war
that they had to appeal to their Minister for
protection. "We are being driven to desperation
by a too-flattering attention," said they. "Our
goings-out and our comings-in are watched; our
downsittings and our uprisings are reported on;
our purchases are noted; our newspapers are
opened; our letters are lost. Kindly assist us
to a little privacy." The Minister hastened to
explain in the proper quarter that the professors
were absolutely harmless — only what they pro-
fessed to be — and please might they be allowed
to live the peaceful life of the innocuous. "We
were only protecting them, " came the answer from
the Proper Quarter, which was pained and grieved
that its action should have been misinterpreted.

A little later the Russians saw how unjust they
were. The Japanese really deserved credit for
the way they protected the Russian residents, the
Russian Mission, and the Cathedral during all

134 Behind the Shoji

the months of the war. Not even a window was
broken; not even a convert was insulted. After
peace was made the Russian Minister and dear
old Bishop Nicolai, one of the best known and
best loved men in Japan, drove in state to the
Police Headquarters and gave formal thanks for
the way they and their belongings had been kept
in safety even when popular feeling against the
Russians was at its bitterest. "Had it not been
for your protection, " said the Minister, in stiff
phrases, "our property, even the lives of our
people, might have been endangered by the
natural excitement of yours. " Then with touch-
ing humility — which experience leads me to think
was intended for publication — the Police Inspector
made an excellent retort. "Even if we had done
nothing, the God of Your Honourable Country
would have watched over and protected his
servants. "

What he probably thought to himself was
that the Russians, throughout the campaign, had
thrown rather too much responsibility on their
God. Heaven, as the proverb says, helps those
who help themselves, arid though faith is a beau-
tiful thing, the sceptical Japanese think they have

Shops and Public Offices 135

found a pretty good substitute for it in an infinite
capacity for taking pains, and a careful attention
to a thousand irritating little red-tape rules and
regulations. If you don't keep your powder dry,
they argue, there is little use believing in a God.

CHAPTER VIII

THE LAWBREAKER AND THE LAW

TPHE only people in Japan who are not pro-
-*■ perly overawed by the police are the very
people that should be most fearful of them — the
Dorobo, those bold, bad robbers of whom every
householder stands in dread unspeakable. In the
popular imagination the Japanese Dorobo is a
mixture of Captain Kettle, d'Artagnan, and Her-
cules. He is strong with the strength of ten; he
is cunning as a lynx. Like Love, he laughs at
locksmiths and "breaks through and steals" in
spite of barred amados (storm shutters). No one
hears him; no one sees him, but on the morning
after his visit the family wake from their heavy,
unventilated slumbers to find one of their best
cloisonnS vases dropped on the verandah and the
rest of their treasures clean gone.

A generation ago every man was his own de-
tective. When a robbery occurred, the head of

136

Lawbreaker and Law 137

the household carefully looked for the awful
Dorobo's footsteps on the garden path, and when
he had found them — or thought he had — cere-
monially burned a cone of Moxa on each. The
feet of the flesh-and-blood Dorobo thereupon grew
sore and swollen. No longer able to run nimbly
from justice, he limped conscience-stricken to the
house he had denuded and gave himself up. But
those were the good old days when being a burglar
did not prevent a man being a chivalrous gentle-
man at the same time.

Now the profession, like so many others, has
fallen into disrepute. It is filled with a low class
of men — the sons of persons in trade — persons
without traditions. The modern Dorobo inherits
from these shop-keeping fathers an ungentlemanly
habit of desperate methods ; he is above, or below,
being touched by an appeal to the finer instincts.
He goes about his business armed with a sword
which he uses with skill and application, and the
householder who gets in his way is lucky if he
gets out of it again with body and soul still in
partnership.

Only very rarely one learns of an exceptional
case, in which a stray touch of the old chivalry

138 Behind the Shoji

relieves the blackness of the modern Dorobo's
character. The police records give occasional
instances of tender compassion shown, to children
by the worst criminals. There was, for instance,
the famous, ghastly murder in which seven persons
of a lonely household were hewn to pieces in their
sleep, and a little child left unharmed in such a
position that the evidence showed how careful
the men who slew must have been not to hurt the
boy.

Women generally get no mercy, though here
again there is an exception to prove the rule.
Two Tokio missionary ladies play the part of
heroines this time; two terrifying masked men,
armed with long, wicked swords, the part of the
villains. The elder lady was suddenly awakened
one winter night by a robber, with the lower part
of his face muffled in black cloth, standing by her
bedside and demanding money.

"I am not accustomed to sleeping with my
savings under my pillow," replied the lady as
calmly as though she were in the habit of being
aroused every night by a terrifying apparition.
"If, however, you insist on having what is not
rightly yours, I will go with you and show you

Lawbreaker and Law 139

where I do keep them. Only you must kindly
hand me my clothes first."

It was bitterly cold and the burglar, the gentle
and compassionate exception, began to fumble
among the garments hung against the opposite
wall with masculine helplessness. He wanted to
find something neat and not gaudy; a nice suit of
grey lamb's-wool combinations struck his eye.
"The very thing," quoth he to himself as he
handed them to the lady. Was she grateful, was
she even content? Not a bit of it. All the thanks
he got for his trouble was a burst of furious indig-
nation. Robber or no robber, she had not the
slightest intention of getting up and walking with
a man unless she was suitably dressed. "Not
those," she said sternly, a world of reproof in her
icy tones. "That," pointing to a becoming red
dressing-gown. The Dorobo meekly obeyed and,
serene in the conviction that she was looking her
best, the lady left the room with him.

Outside the door, at the foot of the stairs, the
second Dorobo was waiting. "Show us quickly
where your money is, and if you are quiet about
it we will not hurt you," said he with intent to
reassure. As well tell a brook to stop babbling

140 Behind the Shoji

as a maiden missionary lady of spirit to remain
silent under the circumstances ! This one grandly
dismissed the idea of personal safety from her
mind, and called to her friend sleeping on the
floor above, "There are robbers in the house. Get
out on the roof and shout." The friend promptly
did; the robbers fled at the alarm — luckily, for
no help was forthcoming. Next day, when the
neighbours were reproached for their lack of public
spirit, they excused themselves by saying, "Yes,
oh, yes, we heard a noise but we said to one
another, 'the honourable missionaries are singing
hymns again,' and so we turned round and went to
sleep." A very ingenious and plausible excuse it
was, but not convincing. Do you suppose they
really thought the "God Ladies" were holding a
service on the roof in their night-clothes? Not
a bit of it; they heard, they realised, and they
remained away because nothing on earth would
have induced them to willingly enter a house with
Dorobo in it. As a very old resident said to me
when I first came to Japan, "Never shout 'Rob-
bers' under any circumstances, for you will be
shunned like the plague if you do. Shout 'Fire'
instead; that will bring all the neighbours in a

Lawbreaker and Law 141

twinkling to assess the damage and save their own
property."

! One of that same pair of genteel desperadoes
who were driven off by the presence of mind of the
missionary heroine terrorised the rest of Tokio for
weeks. A few nights afterwards he broke into
another* building. Two young girls slept alone in
the house. They were timid, gentle creatures — the
type that puts its head under the bedclothes in
a thunder-storm and makes such an excellent,
submissive wife — and though they heard the man
enter their room they were powerless to do any-
thing more practical than lie shaking in an ex-
tremity of terror while he quietly lighted a candle,
went through their belongings, and gathered up
their little trinkets.

After he had gone they recovered sufficiently to
shriek for the Junsa (policeman), whose first care
when he arrived was to whisk his note-book from
his pocket and begin cross-questioning the young
girls as severely as if they had just stolen their
own things. "What is your age? What are
your names?" he inquired. "But, please, what
has that to do with it?" the elder found courage
to ask. The policeman waived this question aside

142 Behind the Shoji

loftily and began again where he had been in-
terrupted. He was a very thorough and punctili-
ous specimen of his class and he intended to follow
what he called his "legulations" at any cost.
Nothing would induce him to leave the house until
he had collected sufficient information for a bio-
graphy of the two girls. "This is an affair which
requires particularly investigation," said he as he
finally went, "because the Dorobo of the lighted
candle is the most dangerous variety. Later I will
inform you of results." But this was the last
they ever heard of the zealous officer for there were
no results to report. The Dorobo had got safely
away while the little policeman was entering in
his note-book the nationality, age, and occupation
of his victims.

If the thief had only been a harmless, erring
crook or kurumaya, instead of a Dorobo of "the
most dangerous variety," I am certain his start
would have availed him nothing. In this land
of Our Little Brown Allies, where not a sparrow
falleth without the fact being reported to the
proper authorities, his hiding-place — even if it
was in the most obscure village — would have been
discovered. Within twenty-four hours a speci-

Lawbreaker and Law 143

ally-detached policeman would have been politely
slipping twine hand-cuffs round his wrist, and re-
marking courteously as he did so, "I beg your
pardon for inconveniencing you," and he himself
would have been replying, "Pray do not mention
it." Thus a necessary business arrangement,
entered into with due regard for the proprieties,
would be decently brought to its inevitable
conclusion.

But the little Japanese policeman finds no
pleasure in setting out to capture a Dorobo "of
the dangerous variety." Even after you have
actually got him, this rascally fellow does not
recognise the first rule of criminal good-breeding,
which is that a captive must never try to escape
once he has been officially informed that he is un-
der arrest. And then the actual capture — that
is attended with risks the little Junsa frankly does
not like at all. Some of the superstitious popular
terror of the typical desperado is in his blood,
perhaps. The villain with masked face and
kimono sleeves caught back with tasuki cords, so
as to leave his arms free to wield the long sword
(with which the killing of six or eight persons may
only occupy a minute), imbues the Officer of the

144 Behind the Shoji

Law with a moral terror. "Look how that fellow
carries his head in his hand," the detectives whis-
per to one another, using the old idiom to describe
a daring Dorobo. Not his bravery but his law-
lessness throws them into a panic. There was
the case of the notorious highwayman not long
ago who took refuge in a doorway and kept half
the police of the town sitting round his retreat in
fascinated inaction — like little birds round a snake
— for a whole day. They found it too embar-
rassing to get into close quarters with him, so
they deliberately besieged the criminal and calmly
watched him commit hari-kari from a safe dis-
tance when he began to feel the pangs of hunger.
Yet it would be most unfair to accuse those police-
men of cowardice. All of them would have died
willingly and gallantly on a battle-field for a noble
cause but they had serious objections to ending
their days like rats in a hole for the sake of re-
covering some paltry property.

Supposing then I lose my electro-plated as-
paragus tongs in Japan, I know what to expect —
unless they happen to be stolen by some meek
household thief. The policeman at my corner will
balance the value of my belongings against the

Lawbreaker and Law 145

chance of possible mutilation to himself, and will
probably decide that my asparagus tongs are an un-
considered trifle — for which I cannot really blame
him. A philosophical temperament is a great
asset in "foreign parts," as I once had occasion to
explain to a Scotch gentleman with red hair and
a vile temper. He lived next door to me in Kioto,
and he lost his bicycle — a beautiful machine made
specially for long-legged sons of the Highlands,
and fitted with special attachments for hill-
climbing and other emergencies. When I say
" lost " I do not mean that he forgot it in a train or
mislaid it in the street by his own carelessness;
no, it disappeared suddenly one night out of his
front hall. He got quite excited, I remember, and
informed the police three times a day for ten days.
But he might as well have informed the wind for
all the good it did. Two weeks, three weeks
passed; his best epithets, including a choice
selection from his own dialect, were giving out;
hope had almost deserted his heart and he had
just made up his mind to walk for the rest of his
days, when a cross-eyed Japanese youth came to
his house and asked if he had lost a bicycle. The
Scotchman replied with an eager affirmative.

146 Behind the Shoji

Well, said the cross-eyed boy, he had recently
bought a very beautiful machine for seventy-five
yen, but he found after purchasing it that the
frame was too large and he could not ride it. Then
some one had told him that a foreign gentle-
man had lost a bicycle, a very tall foreign gentle-
man; therefore he had come to the very tallest
foreign gentleman he knew of, and he now offered
to return the machine for what he had paid for it.
Would the foreign gentleman come and look at the
machine? The "Foreign Gentleman" did, and
recognised it immediately as his own. There it
was without a scratch, the long-lost treasure! He
notified' the police at once that it was found and
they said he was very lucky; the best thing he
could do under the circumstances would be to buy
his own bicycle back again and ask no questions.
Perhaps seventy-five yen was a little dear, but
fifty would be fair; probably the cross-eyed boy
would sell for fifty. He did — with the manner
of one performing a kind and thoughtful action.
Strange to say, none of the little Junsa seemed to
think it odd that a Japanese youth should walk
into a bicycle shop, grandly pull seventy-five yen
out of his pocket (where it would be unusual to

Lawbreaker and Law 147

find seventy-five sen) and buy a very fine ma-
chine without so much as putting his foot on the
pedal to see if, when he did, the proper and corre-
sponding part of his anatomy reached the seat.
And stranger still, none of them appeared sur-
prised that the youth showed such supreme
unselfishness that he returned that machine at
a personal loss of twenty-five yen, just for the
pure pleasure of doing a kindness to a stranger.

Though residents hardly ever get their stolen
possessions back in Japan, tourists sometimes do.
If a Dorobo snatches a visitor's watch by mistake,
he will often return it by dropping it into a letter-
box or even, on a dark night, by throwing it in
through the open window of a police-station on
to the lap of the policeman sitting quietly inside.
With my own ears have I listened to a grateful
tourist in the hall of a Tokio hotel loudly exclaim-
ing, "I love the police, I love the police." His
gold repeater, lost in a railway station two hours
before, had just been returned to him, so no won-
der he sang the Junsa's praises. The point of in-
terest is that he will continue to sing them in
other lands he visits; will act really as a kind of
living advertisement, and, did he but know it, the

148 Behind the Shoji

hope of these favours to come is the reason of the
prompt return of his property. I am informed, on
the best authority, that though the pojice are not
on visiting terms with the Robbers' Guild they
have been known to hold communication by letter
with its head men, somewhat in this style: "Please
return to us the jewels you removed yesterday.
They belonged to a man influential in his own
land, and be will talk for ever about the affair if
they are not recovered. He will smirch the fair
name of our country. He will say we are no
respecter of persons; he will say, oh! things too
humiliating to be borne , Even his newspapers will
criticise us. Please, therefore, for the honour of
Japan return the jewels quickly, and some time,
when some one who lives here for ever and cannot
go away and talk has some valuable to your taste,
we will be deaf when you pry open his amado."
There is no resisting such an appeal — not, at least
by a Japanese Dorobo, who, like all his country-
men, is patriot first and professional afterwards.
The stolen goods are back before morning, and
the police get kudos and loving gratitude for ever.
Nowadays all over the world "the man who
advertises is the man who gets the trade" — and

Lawbreaker and Law 149

the praise. Make a good show in public — that 's
half the battle — the half which Our Little Brown
Allies understand so well. Individual and private
lapses are insignificant, though they may be amus-
ing. I know a good story, for instance, about a
certain little Junsa who fell from his high stand-
ard. A lady belonging to the British Embassy in
Tokio was awakened one night by a noise. Her
husband happened to be away at the time, and,
terrified, she immediately screamed, "Junsa,
Junsa" without waiting to make any further in-
quiries. The little policeman, well knowing that
he could not afford to be deaf to a call from an
Embassy, came at once and searched the house
diligently, but nothing could be discovered except
the cat scratching on the amados. The lady con-
sequently felt ashamed, just as a fond mother
does when she calls a doctor to attend her crying
offspring at midnight and finds that the baby has
only been bitten by a mosquito. She dissolved
in apologies while the rest of the family appeared
one by one in various stages of deshabille and dis-
solved too. In order to recompense the little
policeman for coming on a false alarm she decided
to make him a present of fifty sen. But with an

150 Behind the Shoji

effective gesture he pushed it from him. "The
Japanese police never accept money for doing
their duty," said he, grandly. The audience was
duly impressed. The lady was more ashamed
than ever; dissolved in apologies again for her
tactless behaviour, and to be extra polite, her-
self accompanied the little man to the front door.
As they stood together in the dimly-lighted hall
she heard a whisper almost in her ear, "Please you
gev me that feefty sen now." The grandilo-
quence had melted away with the onlookers;
greed got the better of him.

Every flock has its black sheep of course; that
is only human. But, on the whole, the Law, as
represented by the little Junsa in Japan, is won-
derfully white — if somewhat dilatory. The reason
is that the police are generally recruited from
the ranks of the Samurai or fighting-men's caste,
which found itself out of work after the break-up
of the old Feudal System. They are, therefore,
better educated than the ordinary mortal, and the
proud possessors of military traditions commanding
infinite respect from the crowd; a respect nothing
can diminish — not even a pair of spectacles or
a sword several sizes too long for the wearer.

Lawbreaker and Law 151

So deep is this reverence, in fact, that no gen-
tleman dreams of asking the way of a little Junsa
without first taking off his hat and bowing almost
to the ground. It is his desire — and the desire of
every other well-regulated citizen — to please the
police even, if need be, at the expense of his per-
sonal inclinations. For this reason one seldom
sees a street brawl in Japan. A man, conscious
of the approach of a fit of rage, uses his remaining
self-control to induce his enemy to follow him in-
doors somewhere so that they will not trouble the
authorities with their quarrel. For this reason,
too, a Japanese crowd is the model for concerted
behaviour. I have seen five thousand people line
Tokio streets to watch the Emperor pass by, and
five little Junsa control them quite easily. Again
I have seen five hundred peasants in a country
town neatly line themselves up behind a, slight
straw rope — according to instructions — in order
to leave the middle of the road free for the passage
of the Crown Prince's cow, which was being led
to a distant pasture by a policeman in full uni-
form and white cotton gloves. On the other
hand, I have never heard of a Japanese attempting
to smuggle in a kodak where he is expressly told

152 Behind the Shoji

not to, or to sketch a fortification, or to injure a
tree he was officially requested not to injure, or to
"snare small animals on Imperial preserves,"
though these preserves may be distant, unfenced,
and unguarded by anything more formal than a
police notification, or to do any of the other things
he ought not to do officially. Undoubtedly they
are by nature a law-abiding people, the Japanese,
and were it not for the Dorobo the land of Our
Little Brown Allies would be the policeman's
paradise.

CHAPTER IX

BRIBERY AND CORRUPTION, OR GIVING AND
RECEIVING

"\AHTH the single exception of an officer of the
* " law engaged in the performance of his
duty, it is not only permissible but suitable and
customary to give anybody in Japan a present.
Moreover, there is no fixed season (as with us)
for giving — no single festive occasion, like our
Christmas, dreaded by fathers, jeered at by
humourists — when aunts and cousins have to be
"remembered" with something which looks as
if it cost more than it actually did, and when
petticoats and portraits of the Royal Family are
distributed among the deserving poor.

The New Year festival provides the first legiti-
mate present-pretext in the Japanese calendar.
But others follow each other in such rapid suc-
cession that there is hardly a day without its own
particular excuse for sending something to some-
body. The lavish man wakes six mornings out

154 Behind the Shoji

of seven with the comfortable feeling that he is
quite justified in working off his fit of generosity
by sending a salt Hokkaido salmon to the Prime
Minister, or a square yard of half-baked Mochi
(a delicacy said to be made of beans, but really
made of gum arabic) to his brother-in-law's uncle.
Or, failing originality of choice, he can always fall
back — only metaphorically, of course — upon a
dozen eggs, which will be chosen comparatively
fresh if destined for people who hold favours in
their hands and may be bribed to let one fall, and
frankly stale if destined for poor relations.

On the Feast of O'Bon, to vary the monotony,
Our Little Brown Allies give presents to the spirits
of their ancestors, who at this season slip out of
heaven for three days in order to see how their
earthly descendants are getting on. They are
the "cloud of witnesses" exercising their prero-
gatives of supervision promptly and personally,
and they are welcomed bjr the simple country folk
as specially honoured guests. A few days before
the festival I see through open shoji the mother of
each household busily arranging the Kamidama or
Shelf of the Gods, where rest the tablets of the
spirits — the Jhai. She moves to and fro with a

Bribery and Corruption 155

curious reverent familiarity, lighting the "grave
lanterns," setting out little cups of fresh water,
little bowls of rice, hanging up queer bunches
of sea -weed, and finally solemnly fashioning a
cucumber horse and an egg-plant cow with tooth-
pick legs. Each offering, the peasants say, has
its own special significance, its own particular
use. The candle lights the August Ancestors
home, the rice and sea-weed feed them, the water
quenches their thirst, the cow waits upon the bank
of the River of Heaven to refresh them with milk,
the cucumber horse transports them if they grow
weary.

But that is not all. On the third and last day
of the festival, when the spirits are about to
return to the Celestial regions, there is a very
pretty ceremony of farewell, and more presents.
At twilight — the hour of grey shadows and mys-
terious secrets — troops of country folk throng into
their quaint cemeteries, where all the little graves
are so tightly packed together that I wonder the
spirits have room to slip in and out. The mourn-
ers carry incense-sticks and flowers, bright sprays
of goldenrod, flaming tiger-lilies, soft trailing
clematis, and whatever else their fancy dictates.

156 Behind the Shoji

The essential point is not to come empty-handed,
but there is no restriction on individual choice.
I have seen a tiny grave decorated with an infant's
patent feeding-bottle, and another with a new
pair of clogs such as some dead mother used in
her lifetime, and still another with a young girl's
gay little sunshade of printed cotton edged with
cheap red fringe.

A nasty specimen of the half -educated, scepti-
cal youth of modern Japan once tried to explain
to me that the peasants, with what he called a
"supercilious" (superstitious) faith in Shintoism,
believe that the souls of their loved ones have be-
come gods with full powers to bless or injure their
mortal descendants; hence the milk-bottles and
shoes and parasols by way of propitiation. He
wanted to persuade me that these tender atten->
tions had their origin in a selfish cupboard love;
to show that the shadow of self-interest dims one
of the brightest facets of the strange, many-sided
Japanese character. But I don't believe a word
of his cynical arguments. Surely, surely, no baby
soul would use its influence in Paradise to injure
that mother-heart which shielded it so tenderly,
surely no mother would have to be bought off

Bribery and Corruption 157

from evil designs on her little children by a pair
of new shoes, and no young girl would intrigue
for the unhappiness of the domestic circle she had
lately left. No, however "supercilious" they may
be, these poor peasants give to their dear dead
with no thought of gain.

It is only in the better-educated, wealthier
class of society — to which my young acquaintance
was so proud to belong — that people are uneasy
when they have made a gift until they get a re-
turn. "The gift perfunctory" in Japan — as in
Mayfair — is strictly confined to the well-to-do.
Only in Mayfair it is seldom used except when
fashionable persons furnish their houses by hold-
ing up their acquaintances with a wedding in-
vitation — whereas among Our Little Brown Allies
there is a masked highwayman at every corner
shouting, "Your present or your reputation." To
disgorge, therefore, becomes a plain social duty
which may be performed with little enthusiasm
but which must be performed both promptly and
correctly.

"Correctly!" there's the rub! After one has
taken infinite pains to choose the wrong thing for
the right person, the manner of its presentation

158 Behind the Shoji

has to be carefully considered. I learned this
lesson from some ragged little village children one
day. The urchins were picnicking near by and I,
being in a charitable mood, determined to con-
tribute to their innocent pleasure by organising
races and offering prizes of cakes and sweet-
meats to the winners. The boys ran willingly
enough. But when I tried to present the awards
not a child would come forward to receive them,
in spite of my most ingratiating smile. They all
stood in a group, very shy and uncomfortable,
looking at me out of the corners of their long eyes
with a curious expression I could n't understand at
the time. Later I learned it was pity — pure pity
for a person whose good gifts were made inac-
cessible to the deserving because he had no know-
ledge of how to give them. Even these little
plebeians, hungry perhaps, greedy certainly, as
children always are for "goodies," could not afford
to overlook the combination of unwrapped cakes
and my bare hand.

A little higher up the social scale a brown paper
covering to a pickled radish or a gold lacquer box
would be considered an equally impossible breach
of the rigid etiquette of giving. The recipient

Bribery and Corruption 159

would be shocked beyond measure — certainly
shocked beyond gratitude. In fact, though a gift
cost a fortune it will avail the giver nothing in
Japan unless its outer wrapping is of a particular
kind of silky white paper, unless the confining
string is of the red and white variety specially
made for such occasions, unless accompanying the
parcel is one of those ceremonious little cardboard
ornaments shaped like a folded umbrella, and, last
of all, unless the wrapper is inscribed with the
mystic and humble words, "Sokoshi bakari" —
"Only a trifle."

This, at least, is the simplest paraphernalia of
presentation. Another and still better way is to
send the gift on a beautiful old tray, and cover it
with an embroidered feroshiki or handkerchief.
You can safely borrow both these accessories if
you like from some person who has a good collec-
tion of family heirlooms, for the recipient is ex-
pected to keep your present — often worth very
little — and promptly return the wrappings —
often worth very much. He may not, however,
return them empty; that would expose him to a
suspicion of meanness; so he lays upon the tray
some trifle — a sheet of white paper or a box of

160 Behind the Shoji

new matches will do — just to show that although
there is nothing in the house sufficiently excellent
to return at the moment, something suitable will
follow a little later. Paper and marches are re-
regarded by both parties simply as an I.O.U. — a
promise to pay, and at the same time a receipt for
value received.

Politeness requires that there should be no
undue dallying over the return present. My own
experience is that while delay means enemies,
haste means deliberately subjecting oneself to an
income tax, for no sooner is somebody paid off
than he insists upon running you into debt again
with another present. The grocer round the
corner, for instance, regularly sends me a little
gift of moist cooking sugar every month when I
pay my bill. If I happen to have been invited
out to meals often during those four weeks and
my account is small, he sends a fat parcel con-
taining five saccharine pounds; if nobody has
troubled about me, and I have consumed at home
a larger quantity of his tomatoes and flour and
salad oil, he only sends a two-pound package,
looking to it nearly that he does not lose by my
invitations, and calculating with great exactness

Bribery and Corruption 161

the value of his sprat in proportion to the size of
the mackerel he means to catch.

Still, he is easy to deal with compared to those
on a plane of social equality with constantly
marrying daughters and constantly dying grand-
parents, whose value, unlike that of the sugar, I
can only guess. I wonder if they ever think,
those careless young people who allow themselves
to be led into matrimony, those inconsiderate
infants who get themselves born, what a burden
they are putting upon their friends and acquaint-
ances? Apparently not; they seem utterly selfish
about it; they never even trouble to choose a
season when eggs and salmon are cheap. Every
householder is therefore at their mercy. And,
worse still, he is at the mercy of any stranger who
thinks the acquaintance of his family desirable
or useful. The stranger's wife arrives one day to
pay her first formal call, bringing the gift, which
she considers essential to the establishment of
relations, in the kuruma with her. She carries it
as naturally as we would a card-case, and hands
it to the servant at the gate with instructions as to
when it is to appear. Usually, just in the middle
of the visit, the nesan brings it in to the hostess,

162 Behind the Shoji

who looks beautifully astonished. "Am I in-
debted to you for this exquisite thing?" she says
to her visitor before she has looked at it. "Oh, I
am so sorry, I am so sorry!" Whether the sor-
row is for the indebtedness, or for the present, or
for some secret grief unconnected with either, the
construction of the language leaves deliciously
vague. Neither caller nor callee refers to the
offering again, however, at the 4 time. The visitor
finds her tray and feroshiki with the matches or
paper on her table when she gets home, and the
hostess makes haste to redeem the promise as
soon as possible, for delay would be taken to
mean that she did not wish the caller's further
acquaintance.

When next the two meet, unless the lady called
upon has been obliged to administer the social
snub, a little extra fervour is put into their bows,
and one says to the other, before inquiring about
the latest gossip, "Thank you for yesterday's,
or for last week's, overwhelming kindness," and
she who has been thanked answers, "Please, do
not mention such a miserable episode, so unworthy
to be connected with your august self."

At fashionable dinner-parties, also, the present

Bribery and Corruption 163

habit prevails. Some kind of souvenir is given to
each guest, and the quality of the gift in these
cases is really a mark of the host's social status.
The poor man sends one home with a paper fan or
a bamboo box full of sweets; the rich calls in a
famous artist to paint one a scroll during dessert.
Or, if the party consist of but few and distin-
guished guests, a host may present a genuine
"Old Master" to each with great ceremony. At
the precise psychological moment a servant carries
the treasures in one by one with the care and respect
that only a package of dynamite would command
in any other country ; then the host himself loosens
the brocade wrappings and unrolls the kakemono
tempo adagio. Slowly, very slowly, as the scroll
unfolds, an anaemic goblin is dimly seen riding a
faded horse which appears to be trying to scratch
its neck with its hind leg. "Ah!" says the guest,
drawing in his breath with a sharp hiss of joy and
admiration — "Ah!" and nothing more. His ap-
preciation is too deep for words. What if time
has obliterated the arms of the man and the tail
of his mount ? Are not the few remaining
smudges enough? Certainly they are — to the real
connoisseur. Only persons without imagination

164 Behind the Shoji

require a complete picture — just as only persons
without, artistic reverence want to make effusive
exclamations when they get it. Our own galleries
and museums are filled with the type which,, car-
rying Cook's coupons in its hand and wearing
strange, garments upon its person, stands in front
of Botticellis exclaiming, " Is n't that line magnifi-
cent?" or "Don't these saucy cherubim in the
left-hand corner give one a remarkable sense of
repose?" Counterfeit connoisseurs, that is what
they are, and the Japanese, genuine to a fault, de-
spises them from the bottom of his heart. He
despises them almost as much as he does that
other type of European who never even raises his
eyes to the beautiful. I remember a young
Japanese gentleman, still at the football age,
seriously giving as his reason for disliking a certain
young Englishman, "He is a person with no ap-
preciation, of the fine arts; therefore I can no
longer respect or associate with him." The two
had once been friendly enough till one night the
Japanese— who was neither fop nor prig, by the
way — invited the Britisher to dinner, and sent
the day, before to inquire of his guest's servant
concerning his master's favourite flower. This in-

Bribery and Corruption 165

quiry was meant as a delicate attention, of course,
but it greatly perplexed the servant, whose master
never looked at flowers. At last he remembered
that once the young Englishman had ordered a
large bunch of irises and sent them to some
"Miss." Irises then, he decided, must be the
gentleman's favourites. Irises, therefore, filled
the Tokonoma in the house of the Japanese
gentleman, and at a certain stage of the dinner
the host complimented his guest on admiring the
flower which is the emblem of patriotism and the
"young man's flower" in Japan. "We say in our
our country that the leaves, shaped like swords
and growing straight as a fine blade, typify the
martial spirit," said the Japanese gentleman,
meaning to be very affable and complimentary.
"Oh, really!" replied the guest, with the air of a
fish out of water. ' ' We are happy that our taste in
flowers should be similar," continued the host with
a more uncertain touch. "Yes, by Jove! beastly
lucky, is n't it?" said the guest in a bored tone as
he looked out of the window — and after that the
host dropped the subject and the association.

Visiting the sick in Japan— ^as indeed else-
where — means a present too. But Japanese in-

166 Behind the Shoji

valids, in whom illness seems to bring out the
gentle, childish characteristics inherent in the
race, crave no orchids or expensive dainties out of
season. Grown men get as much pleasure from
a dwarf pine in a soap-dish as they would from
anything else one could bring, though it cost five
times as much. In fact, this was the favourite
choice of the poor wounded soldiers who lay so
patiently in the hospitals after the war — this little
gnarled tree, pathetically like the poor misshapen
cripples themselves. They preferred it to cakes,
or sweetmeats — to everything but their beloved
cherry-blossom, which they loved so much that
it was with the greatest difficulty one could get
the fragrant pink branches into the wards. A
score of convalescents were always waiting out-
side to beg for them, and the biggest armful was
soon distributed. "I have good fortune to-day,"
the successful soldiers would say gleefully, hob-
bling off on their crutches to stick their sprays
in medicine bottles full of water, and those who
were disappointed, when they were asked what
they would like next time, "a packet of cigarettes
or a flower?" always answered, "Honourably be
kind enough to bring me a flower."

Bribery and Corruption 167

But, failing flowers, they were prettily grateful
for every little thing they received, these iron
warriors, in whose hearts a little child still sleeps
so lightly that he wakes unexpectedly to every
one's surprise. Relatives brought them goldfish
and games like "Pigs in Clover," or tobacco, and
sometimes gifts of a rough teapot and a few little
cups, which would draw a dozen poor maimed
fellows creeping along the floor to the bed of the
lucky recipient to share in a tea-party. After-
wards, in spite of all difficulties, the strong idea
of a necessary return for hospitality received kept
these poor guests busy and happy for days
making paper flowers in their beds for their
hosts.

The rule of give back if you have taken is as
inflexible as the laws of the Medes and Persians.
When you have had anything in Japan a gift of
thanks must be sent; when you want anything, a
gift must precede the request for a favour. The
student who wishes to join a class takes something
to his teacher. The acquaintance, to whom one
has given an address, repays the trouble with a
box of macaroni. One of my friends, to whom I
presented some quinine tabloids, brought me a box

168 Behind the Shoji

of- Huntley & Palmer's wafers next day with "The
Honourable Biscuits" written in a very pains-
taking hand on the wrapping. . Another, a little
Japanese lady whom I often asked to dinner, felt
obliged to repay me every time with a gift which
she carefully hid under her chair until the meal
was over. Both of us were uncomfortably aware
of its presence the whole time, but still we main-
tained the fiction of its not being there at all; and
I. managed to .receive it with creditable surprise
for months — until at last I screwed up my courage
to explain that my gratitude was considerably
tempered with embarrassment. Her company, I
explained, was my reward for the trouble and ex-
pense of the meal, and further, material payment
made me feel unpleasantly like a restaurant-
keeper doing a strictly cash, business.

When she understood the point of view I be-
lieve she, too was secretly relieved to be free of
the terrible bi-weekly strain of providing novelties.
She could not have held out much longer without
repeating herself, since, before I plucked up
courage to stop her, she had already brought a
dozen different kinds of cakes, parti - coloured
bows for the hair, a painted Gifu lantern for my

Bribery and Corruption 169

verandah, two varieties of soap with beautiful
pink veins in it, a five-pound tin of Australian
butter, and a bottle of preserved cherries.

The strain of giving would really become un-
endurable to half the people in Japan were it not
for what is known as the "meibutsu" or specialty
of each town. This fills in gaps nicely; this pro-
vides the answer to vexed questions. "What
shall I give to the kind person from whom I
have received my twenty-fifth English lesson?"
"A meibutsu." "And what shall I send my ail-
ing father-in-law?" "A meibutsu" also, both to
be brought back from the next place I happen to
visit. The shops there are sure to make a re-
duction on quantity, well knowing that every
person who goes off on a holiday is expected to re-
turn with "meibutsu" for everybody he knows, the
idea being that a person who has enjoyed him-
self and had nothing particular to do should try
to make up to those left behind in the place where
they belong, engaged in the usual dull routine.
Help to lift somebody out of the rut by bringing
home to him or her some little novelty — that is the
kindly spirit — and never mind what the trifle may
be. Whether a metal pipe or a bamboo toy, it

170 Behind the Shoji

can be presented with perfect propriety to grand-
mother or infant grandson.

" Meibutsus" vary greatly of course. Some are
sticky like the chestnut paste of Nikko, some
are bulky and a source of perpetual anxiety like the
fragile baskets of Arima, some are pretty like the
Ikao cotton cloth dyed in the iron spring water, and
some are useless and ugly and impossible to carry,
like the fierce fishes of Kamakura — the fishes
which blow themselves up into a globe when angry
or excited and then remain blown up — as an eter-
nal punishment I suppose — and get turned into
lanterns. There are dozens of all varieties, use-
ful and useless, dear and queer, sensible and silly,
so that people with much-travelled acquaintances
are soon in a fair way to start a museum. Or, to
be accurate, they would be if they kept the things.
But nobody does keep them all. The provident
housekeeper constantly receiving "meibutsus,"
and constantly requiring things to send back in
return, has invented a system to circumvent the
expense. It is somewhat like double entry book-
keeping. When the need for the return gift
arises, she goes, like old Mother Hubbard, to her
cupboard and looks over the parcels that have

Bribery and Corruption 171

arrived lately. Distinctive things like blown-
up fish may be out of the question, but there are
sure to be some local or non-committal contribu-
tions. Doubtless there will be eggs hardly a
month old yet, and cakes that only came week
before last. Either of these will do nicely;
therefore the lady wraps them up properly
and passes them on. Nine times out of ten, she
who receives them does the same; also her friend
and her friend's friend, till those eggs or cakes are
nearly as travelled as a war correspondent.

It is not considered good form to put a taxi-
meter or a pedometer in the box, but a small mark
has been placed on an unobtrusive part of a
speckled egg before now. I once did it myself out
of curiosity. Would those eggs come back to
me? And how soon? Here, thought I, was my
chance to prove my standing in the community.
If they returned staler than when I sent them out,
I was -a stranger on whose right side nobody
particularly cared about being; I was a person
without influence. If, on the other hand, they
were deflected to another beat, I might feel a
certain justifiable pride; I was a person of im-
portance. It was a dangerous game, and all I

172 Behind the Shoji

can say is pride had the fall that the prophets
predict. There was an interval — a decent in-
terval, during which my eggs made the grand tour
among mutual acquaintances, and then — and then
— they returned with the card of the doctor's wife
(I was exceedingly healthy) bearing the inscrip-
tion "Sokoshi bakari" — "Only a trifle" — staler
than before.

"Ah," thought I to myself, "how much more
blessed is it to give than to receive!"

CHAPTER X

THE IIWAKE — A " SPEAK-BECAUSE "

/GENERALLY speaking, Our Little Brown
^^ Allies look upon everyday life as part of
a very old work of social art, inlaid and polished
beautifully long ago, which they think it their
duty to keep from becoming scratched on its
smooth and shining surface. The giving of gifts
naturally helps to do this, but the real vernis-
martin which preserves intact the lacquer of polite
society is the Iiwake or " Speak-Because," literally,
"excuse."

The Iiwake must have originated some time in
the Middle Ages when the Samurai rule, "Never
tell a lie to your friends," was in full force. As
nothing was said about enemies, employers, or the
general public, the inference was that they might
be duped ad infinitum — still, even the limited com-
mand was found embarrassing beyond measure.
Some compromise with conscience, some decent

173

174 Behind the Shoji

drapery to disguise the nakedness of Truth, was
urgently needed, and thus the Iiwake came into
being.

From that time to this it has survived, through
wars, floods, and social upheavals. Politicians
still adopt it; friends still employ it, children still
cry for it. Whenever an unexpected difficulty
arises, there it is — useful to-day as yesterday —
an ever-ready polisher to wipe away discomforts,
and one which practice has taught Our Little
Brown Allies to use with consummate perfection.
Indeed, I find that the plausible excuses, which are
little less than lies and little more than truths, now
mount to Japanese brains spontaneously, as if by
instinct. They can gauge with the accuracy of a
hawk descending on its prey the amount of force
required to impress each Iiwake on each victim;
then having gauged, they can boldly present their
"speak-because" with as innocent an expression
as if it were an unanswerable argument, and with-
out any of the stammering or stuttering which
marks the amateur in prevarication.

The most common and the most commendable
form of ' ' speak-because ' ' is that dropped by a prac-
tised tongue simply to please a questioner. For

The Iiwake 175

instance, suppose I stop a passing lad on a coun-
try road and ask the distance to the next village,
what does he answer? Nothing at first; it takes
him five minutes to realise that I, a stranger, who
have no reason to be doing so, am addressing him
in his own language; once he grasps that fact, shy-
ness still makes him slow of understanding.and I
therefore try to put him at ease by helping him
with the answer. "This village I just asked you
about, is it very far away? Do you think it is
seven miles?" I repeat slowly to encourage the
bashful youth and put our acquaintance on a
more friendly footing.

"Yes, oh, yes, it is seven miles," he always
answers. The dull, peasant face is alight with the
desire to give satisfaction. To me somehow this
eagerness seems a little overdone; my caution is
aroused and I generally try another question,
mentioning a different distance this time in a
search for corroborative evidence. "About nine
miles you say?" and then he replies just as cheer-
fully as before, "Yes, about nine miles." Had I
said ten, twelve, or even fourteen miles, the result
would have been exactly the same since the very
fact of my suggesting any number was sufficient

176 Behind the Shoji

clue for the "pleasing lie apparent." Therefore,
nowadays, whenever I ask a question in Japan,
no matter how satisfactory the answer may be, I
always think of what the Queen of Sheba said to
Solomon — and I think she must have said" it with
a sigh — "The half of it hath not been told unto
me.

Another popular variety of Iiwake is that em-
ployed as a means of self-preservation after
wrong-doing. Like the "gift perfunctory" this
did not originate in Japan, credit for the idea be-
ing due to Adam, who invented the first excuse
when he was suddenly called upon to explain about
the forbidden fruit. The Japanese have simply
adopted his patent and improved upon it, till
now even the stupidest among them can plan an
Iiwake, and tell it in a less bungling manner than
the father of men.

My old housekeeper in Tokio, for example —
the stupidest of women — a poor, wrinkled old
crone with the dulness of age and the morals of a
child of ten — surprised me one morning by show-
ing unexpected resource and originality in a
" speak-because " which was to save her from a
scolding. It so happened that the sliding paper

The Iiwake 177

screens of my little house had been newly papered
and for seven days I looked on their stainless
purity with pride and satisfaction. On the
eighth morning I was vexed — excusably vexed —
to find that across each little square snowy pane
some one had drawn a neat St. Andrew's cross with
great deliberation and a sharp instrument, nearly
cutting it into four. Wrath gleaming in my eye,
I taxed the old housekeeper with the desecration,
but instead of being insulted or nonplussed she
only smiled and said simply, "The weather is so
damp, Okksan (lady), that when I slid open the
shoji this morning they did not run freely, and to
my great surprise it happened." What could I
do in the face of her pained astonishment but
stand still, in much the same state myself, while
she elaborated the imaginary incident, and care-
fully explained how dampness often drew mathe-
matical St. Andrew's crosses on paper panes?
Not for a moment did she seem to imagine that I
might guess, once my admiration for her talent for
fiction had worn off, that the "damp weather"
had been assisted by her little grandchild, a bright-
eyed mischief who ran errands for me.

Gifted and resourceful as this Iiwake undoubt-

178 Behind the Shoji

edly was, however, it cannot compare with one
which came my way a little later. On a certain
hot, drowsy summer afternoon, when the semi
(cicada) were singing their loud, wheezy notes, a
little boy rushed through my garden gate and
burst in on me like a whirlwind. He was sobbing
and gasping and seemed greatly excited. "Ai, ai,"
he said in answer to my astonished questions.
"My mother is coughing and bleeding at the
mouth, and I have come in great haste searching
for coxcombs to cure her. Will you give me some
coxcombs from your garden?" "But why do
you seek for coxcombs? Why not for a doctor?"
He began to weep afresh at this suggestion, and
I was so grieved at his very genuine-looking
sorrow that I, instead of asking more irrelevant
questions, told him forthwith that I had no cox-
combs, though, if his heart and faith were set
on coxcombs, one of the neighbours had a few.
"Yes, I know," he sobbed, "the little house down
the street has them, but the people who live there
won't let me in, won't listen to me, and my mother
is coughing." I cut him short. That poor wo-
man, that poor suffering creature whose offspring
was so distraught — we must do something for her

The Iiwake 179

and not waste precious time in idle talk. So
hand-in-hand the wailing, dirty little boy and I
went to the house down the street. Went, I
said, but to be exactly truthful we ran breathlessly
till we reached the place. There, growing in a
straggling row in the little garden, stood the cox-
combs J;hat were to save the child from despair
— the mother from death perhaps — and there was
the gate securely locked, the family evidently hav-
ing gone off for the day. ' ' You foolish little boy, ' '
I burst out as I realised how the child had not only
maligned the people who lived in the house, but
wasted precious time by doing so, "it isn't that
they won't let you in. They can't. They are n't
in themselves." He answered by setting up an-
other doleful wail and beginning again the story
of his misfortunes: "My mother is coughing, and
blood is pouring from her mouth," till I felt very
like wailing myself. With an effort I checked the
tendency and said firmly, "Listen, little boy.
There seem to be no available coxcombs in this
quarter, but if you are sure they are what you
need in this terrible calamity, here is a card to a
friend of mine who has a whole garden full of
coxcombs." I scribbled an urgent appeal on the

180 Behind the Shoji

card hurriedly for every moment was precious and
gave it to him. "Now, go as fast as you can to
fetch the remedy, and as my friend lives on the
other side of the city, take this twenty sen and
hire a kurumaya [jinricksha coolie], whose legs,
being longer, will carry you there faster than your
own," was my parting admonition.

He disappeared, still wailing and groaning, and
I spent a miserable afternoon thinking of the poor
woman racked with pain and waiting for the one
thing that could give her relief. A few days
afterwards I met my friend from across the city
and gravely began about the coxcomb incident.
"Oh, you mean the little boy who brought a card
from you," she said with a chuckle which I thought
most unfeeling under the circumstances. "Well,
I happened to be out at the time but my man-
servant, who evidently understands his own peo-
ple better than you do, opened the door and took
a good look at the little boy. 'I believe I have
seen you before,' he said to the urchin. 'Yes,
now I am sure I have seen you before. You are
the same little boy that came here a year ago
and got fifty sen from my mistress because your
grandfather was very ill. We 've had enough of

The Iiwake 181

your ailing relatives so be off, or I will call the
Junsa to arrest you for begging.' " And that
was the end of the pitiful incident. The fact that
it was so well worked out, that the combination
of coughing mother and coxcombs was so pictur-
esque, that the grief and agony were so splendidly
acted, and the joy over the twenty sen so well
disguised, was all the balm I could find for my
stupidity at being duped by a small boy of twelve.
Mothers are the best possible foundation for
an Iiwake since, shown in misfortune, they arouse
pity as no other relative can — especially when
"presented" by a people like Our Little Brown
Allies, who have a natural dramatic talent for
effects and how just to produce them. My baker's
boy, having neglected to bring my bread for a
week, and well knowing that he had laid up for
himself a good scolding, was not above excusing
his absence, when he finally did appear, by say-
ing, in a very doleful tone, which I felt sure was
put on, "Oh, my poor mother has been ill!"
He had an aggrieved manner, too, as he said it,
and I felt that this was his way of reproving me
for my heartlessness at wanting my breakfast
under such tragic circumstances.

182 Behind the Shoji

"What a pity," I replied a little sarcastically.
"Now, what has been the matter with her? The
rainy weather perhaps ? " " No. " "A little spring
feeling of laziness then?" "No," again, and this
time still more dolefully, his woe-begone face
plainly reading me a lecture for my levity. ' ' Well,
what has been the matter?" "A plate fell on her
head ! " he finally announced with an air that per-
emptorily waived all further banter aside. I was
aghast. "Now, will you please explain to me
how in a Japanese house, where nothing is ever
hung on walls or put on high shelves, a plate fell
on your mother's head?" But he was gone with-
out stopping to explain. Only the pitying hunch
of his retreating shoulders conveyed to me as
plainly as words what he thought of a person so
lacking in respect for parents as I evidently was.

The Iiwake is further used for wriggling out of
things unpleasant to do and at the same time im-
polite to refuse to do. A gentleman of my ac-
quaintance employed a really inspired Iiawke of
this type in order to avoid a wife. The lady in
question, though possessed of all the virtues, was
a little beyond her first youth and had the reputa-
tion of being perhaps a trifle strong-minded. Some

The Iiwake 183

kind missionaries, who knew her and thought it a
pity that so much virtue — even if a little undiluted
— should be wasted in single blessedness, tried to
arrange a match for her with this very good and
suitable man who lived in a small town in the in-
terior. They wrote him long letters cataloguing
her good qualities and dwelling on her suitability
to be his helpmeet. But the prospective bride-
groom, in the true Japanese fashion, made a few
inquiries of his own, and learned from his im-
partial witnesses that the lady was older and
more intelligent than he cared for. As he could
not, in common politeness, refuse the offer point-
blank, he cast about for an excuse. At last he
found one worthy of the occasion, and wrote the
following letter:

" Dear Madams, — Your kindness in so tenderly
considering my humble welfare I shall never,
never forget. But my insignificant village is far
away in the mountains, and in winter it is very
cold. Therefore it would be exceedingly selfish of
me to bring a lady of all the good qualities you
describe to live in such discomfort in a dreary
place where every year there falls deep snow. I

1 84 Behind the Shoji

could not do so; to profit by your kindness in this
way would be too selfish, and my conscience would
continually reproach me for want of thoughtful-
ness of others."

Of course the good missionaries could not allow
him to be daily pricked by his very sensitive con-
science, therefore their lady candidate remained
in single blessedness.

A friend of mine, an Englishwoman, was the
victim of the most comical Iiwake I ever heard —
told by no less a person than the principal of a
celebrated Tokio language school. The lady in
question had agreed at some personal incon-
venience to help this teacher of languages with
his higher classes. She had accepted his worri-
some boys for a given number of hours each week,
and considering their exceeding eagerness to learn,
and their exceeding stupidity about doing it, she
felt herself entitled to a heavenly crown — let
alone politeness upon this earth. But alas! one
day she was obliged to tell her pupils in the class-
room that she noticed with regret a very rude habit
growing up among the children of Tokio, some of
them perhaps brothers and sisters of these very

The Iiwake 185

pupils. "They pursue me in the street calling
me 'Ijin Bakka' " ("Foreign Fool"), she ex-
claimed with warmth. "Do you not think an
Englishwoman, of all women, should be most free
from insult in your country seeing what England
has done for Japan?"

No answer but a shuffling of nervors feet.
Luckily just at that moment the principal of the
school had entered the room and was standing by
the lady's side listening. "It is indeed a thing
to be ashamed of, if true," he murmured. He
was cold, suspicious, inquisitive. The "if true"
plainly conveyed a world of uncomplimentary
meaning. Freely translated it might have been
rendered, "I don't believe a word you said," and
the lady was bridling anew at the implied insult
when a small boy, no doubt intended for a future
pupil, appeared in the doorway, and, from the
shelter of his mother's kimono, pointed at the
English teacher and screamed in a shrill voice,
"Ijin, Iijin Bakka." There was a moment of
strained silence, then the lady, outraged but
triumphant, exclaimed, "There! What did I
tell you? Now you hear it for yourself. Within
the very walls of your schoolroom, I, straight from

1 86 Behind the Shoji

the country you pretend to honour, am treated as
a barbarian." The little school principal was
actually nonplussed for a moment and at a loss
for excuses. He was only just saved from com-
plete collapse by a little colleague who rushed up
and whispered in his ear.

"Well, what does he say?" demanded the in-
dignant Englishwoman waiting for her apology.

"He says," gently replied the principal in his
most soothing tone, "that you must be kind
enough graciously to excuse the little boy's mis-
take. He only called you a foreign fool because
he had not the honour of knowing your other
name." When in doubt use a synonym was the
gentle inference, and not a safe one; its effect be-
ing to increase the strain on the bulwark of the
lady's self-control. "Do you call that a sufficient
reason for his insulting epithets?" she retorted,
flaming with indignation. She might have added
that in the land to which she was proud to belong
a blue eye might be blackened for less. "What
would you say if you took a walk down Piccadilly
and the boys called you 'yellow monkey'? How
would you feel if, when you made a complaint to
the police — as you are so fond of doing — they

The Iiwake 187

answered that this was the usual remark when
English people did not know a visitor's name?
Answer me that."

But neither the principal nor the sub-teacher did
or could, and for the only time on record their ally,
the Iiwake, deserted them, leaving them helpless
in the throes of this awful encounter.

One last example of the "speak-because" must
be given for the sake of those who enjoy solving
puzzles. Perhaps some person adept at acrostics
or skilled at telepathy, or some follower of Sher-
lock Holmes, may be able to explain it. The
dramatis personce concerned were three in number
— a Scotchman and his wife, and a Japanese land-
lord. The stage properties were a house and
garden at Nikko which the hero and heroine de-
sired to rent for the summer, and the villain, with
smiling countenance hiding deep deceit, agreed to
allow them to occupy. Negotiations proceeded
swimmingly for some weeks, as of course in the
East bargains cannot be concluded in a hurry.
The landlord agreed to make certain alterations.
The prospective tenants bought a phrase book
and made affable remarks like "This house suits
us sufficiently well but can you assure us that the

1 88 Behind the Shoji

roof will not be leaking in the tempestuous heats of
summer?" the author having forgotten to mention
the word for "rains," and they being reduced to
mentioning the only other thing to do with that
season which he had included.

Then suddenly the landlord changed like the
climate near a mountain lake, as the Japanese say.
From an attitude of obliging politeness he turned
to one of obstinate obstruction. The very im-
provements to which a week before he had listened
with such nattering respect were now dismissed
summarily as out of the question. This was im-
possible, that was inconvenient. "What can the
man mean?" said the Scotchman to his Scotch
wife.

What the man meant, had they only known
it, was to gently irritate them till they went off in
search of another domicile. He must have said
something like this to himself: "Europeans are
persons full of excitement, empty of self-control,
and always in immoderate haste. Therefore, if I
politely thwart their selfish desires and delay in
executing their commands, the tempers of this per-
sistent pair will fly out like the cork in a soda-
water bottle; they will fizz rude remarks for a few

The Iiwake 189

moments and then take themselves off and cease
to trouble me." He miscalculated, however,
the fine old strain of Highland determination
which asserted itself the more strongly the more he
dissuaded. ' ' This particular house and no other, ' '
said the Scotchman and his Scotch wife in the tone
that they^would have used in reciting "Scots wha
hae wi' Wallace bled." It was becoming a des-
perate situation for the landlord. Hard pressed,
his imagination squeezed almost dry of Iiwake he
made one final effort, but luckily it was a good
one.

"I have an old aunt," said he, beginning his
last "speak-because" with the immobility of a
bronze Buddha, "who is not only old but crippled
also. She cannot be moved, and she must have
the largest front room in order that her old eyes
may look upon the beauty of the garden." At
this news even the Scotch family were so im-
pressed that they gave up and bowed themselves
out. "We have old aunts of our own in two
hemispheres," they said, "and if we have to live
with anybody's old aunts we will live with those."

But why should the man have suddenly trumped
up this ailing relative in order to keep a good fat

igo Behind the Shoji

rent from finding its way to his pocket? Why
indeed? There is the mystery presented in all
humility to those who have the detective in-
stinct. The one possible clue to the landlord's
volte face is the fact that his villa adjoined the
Crown Prince's palace and the Government may
have given him a peremptory hint not to let it to
strangers. I give this clue for what it may be
worth, though personally I see no reason why a
decently-behaved Scotch family — no children and
all the washing done out of the house — should not
live next to the Crown Prince if they were willing
to pay to do it. They would seem to me the
last people on earth likely to throw a bomb over
the wall. As Bernard Shaw says, though, "You
never can tell," and royalty is not a thing to take
risks with in these days when it is touch-and-go
with the "upper classes," and even the House of
Lords may be asked to send in its resignation in
the middle of the season.

CHAPTER XI

CERTAIN CURIOUS CHARACTERISTICS

AS a French humourist says, "Ze different
^^ nations 'ave ze different customs," not
only in Iiwakes but in other things besides — and
fortunately they do. The world would be a dull
place if everybody lived, learned, and lied like
everybody else. Thank Heaven, I say, that by
the mere crossing of an ocean one can look at
life through the wrong end of a telescope, and get
not only a new viewpoint but a new focus as well.
Certainly half the charm of the land of Our
Little Brown Allies would be gone were we no
longer to find a hundred surprises there — the
gardens with stones instead of flowers, the win-
dows of paper instead of glass, the trees in pots
instead of in forests, and the thousand and
one curious habits which have all the charm of
variety. Half our interest in the Japanese them-
selves, too, would be gone were it not for what

191

192 Behind the Shoji

we are pleased to call their topsy-turvy way of
doing things.

Watch Japanese carpenters building a house,
for instance. They put the roof on before they
build the walls, instead of afterwards, and strange
to say, their method answers as well as our own.
Fragile though the buildings look as they run up
in a night, yet they stand the shakings and quak-
ings of a restless earth better than the Western
sky-scraper with its steel corset. The suppleness
of the bending reed outlasts the stiff, uncompro-
mising strength of the oak.

Watch how the Japanese fishermen launch their
boats, push them into the water stern first, and
how the Japanese groom puts his horse into the
stable, ties the animal up head outwards, choosing
with some taste to present the creature's most at-
tractive end to the public and risk a bite for the
passer-by rather than a kick.

Watch the Japanese housekeeper doing house-
work. Instead of using an ugly dustpan she
takes a fan, which, be it remarked, is the most
useful thing in the country, and stands to Our
Little Brown Allies much as the bamboo to the
Chinese and the cocoanut to the South Sea

Curious Characteristics 193

Islander. One kind made of coarse paper serves
the hired handmaiden to blow up the charcoal
fire with; another, larger and stouter, winnows the
farmer's grain; a third, shaped like a lozenge, is the
baton of umpires at wrestling matches, its various
motions constituting a deaf-and-dumb language
which the combatants understand and promptly
heed; a fourth, as big as a small screen, is the im-
perial emblem of Court ceremonies; a fifth, like a
wooden soup-ladle, is carried by high priests in
processions; while a hundred other varieties are
used by actors, singers, dancers, and by the gen-
eral public, male and female, neither sex thinking
it unseemly to go out on a hot day with one tucked
into the neck of the kimono.

But to return to the peculiarities of the Jap-
anese housekeeper — "the foolish person who sits
in the inner room," as her modest husband calls
her to his acquaintances. She uses an umbrella
made of paper, which is the very last material we
should choose to take out in the wet, even if oiled.
She wraps her parcels in a silk or cotton wrapping,
really a large handkerchief — as we understand the
term — and when she wants a real handkerchief for
nose-blowing purposes she takes a square of soft
13

194 Behind the Shoji

white paper which she uses once and then throws
away. Her children, if the household be poor,
are not allowed this luxury, and as a result many
a quaint little face is transformed into something
very nearly repulsive for Want of the sheet of
notepaper. "I wish," a missionary lady once
said to me as we were walking together through a
poor village where there were dozens of ill-kept
children, "I wish I had brought a trunk full of
handkerchiefs instead of Bibles."

When the Japanese "house-mother" writes a
note, or, as is more likely, gets one written for
her by the professional letter-writer, she turns her
address inside out like this: "Brown John Mr.,
Street Wood Pine, Tokio." When she enters a
bath, public or private, she takes care to remove
the superfluous dirt outside the tub, and to wash
off all traces of soap before she gets in, so that the
long series of bathers who will all enjoy the same
hot water in turn may not be inconvenienced.
When she puts on her kimono she crosses it from
right to left, superstition forbidding it to be done
the other way for fear of evil consequences. In-
stinctively it seems as if our processes of mind,
even in trifles, are the exact reverse of hers, for

Curious Characteristics 195

we Europeans, in putting on a Japanese dress,
invariably cross it from left to right, causing
the Japanese to shudder. "Foreigners cross a
kimono," they say, "as we cross the kimono of a
corpse."

With the same contradiction of instinct, we
wear black at funerals and white at weddings,
while in Japan it is just the other way. Japanese
brides wear black — indeed, black is ever the
colour for ceremonies, and it is in this sombre
shade that the "foolish person who sits in the inner
room" pays her formal calls. On such occasions,
to mention a few more of the little differences be-
tween the people of one island empire and the
people of the other, it is the guest in Japan, not
the hostess, who pours out tea, and it is the
hostess, not the guest, who fixes the time of the
latter 's departure. "You must be very tired
talking to me so long," she says when she feels her
own conversation giving out. "How kind of you
to have bored yourself in my society for such a
length of time." Without this signal the guest
dare not move for politeness' sake — a custom
globe-trotters should bear in mind when Jap-
anese visitors come to see them and stay from

196 Behind the Shoji

breakfast till dinner; in justice to the poor things
remember they may be dying to go home to sick
babies or pressing business, only without the
proper hint how can they?

Students who care to dive into the deeps of Jap-
anese folk-lore will find there some of our myths
turned upside down, though otherwise recognis-
able. Hero and Leander become a fisherman's
daughter and her fisherman lover — only in Japan
Hero does the swimming while Leander sits
snugly at home in his thatched cottage. Night
after night she crosses the strait that separates
them guided by a light shining in his window
till, one night of storm, the taper is blown out or
neglected, and poor Hero, struggling in an angry
sea, loses her way and is drowned. It is a well-
known story, all the fisher-folk of Izu tell it, yet
not one of them that I have ever spoken to on the
subject seems to feel it reflects the least discredit
on Leander; any blame, if blame there be, at-
taches to poor Hero, who only got her just deserts
for her forwardness they think.

For people who prefer humanities to histories,
there is a far prettier modern story, concerned
with no careless lovers but with a gentle old man

Curious Characteristics 197

and a rose garden and the curious Japanese habit
of becoming "go-inkyo," or the "honourable re-
tired one," at an age when our heads of families
most appreciate the privileges of headship. My
old man was a gardener well known in Tokio for
his wonderful roses, which everybody bought be-
cause he alone seemed to know the secret of
bringing them to perfection in a strange country.
A kindly, gentle old soul, customers who came to
buy usually remained to chat with him, and he
grew to be so well known, so well liked, that every-
body looked on "Rose-Garden Man" as a friendly
and familiar landmark. Imagine then the sur-
prise, the consternation, when one day, quite
unexpectedly and without warning, the old fellow
announced that his patrons might have any of his
pots they liked because he was about to become
go-inkyo. At first they scarcely believed him.
"It is true," he repeated obstinately, and divided
all his keepsakes among his friends as if he were
going to another world. Finally, having given
away all he could, he called in an old-clothes dealer
and sold the rest, including his worn sandals and
his patched gardening clothes, throwing in a
familiar spotted leather waistcoat — the gift of

198 Behind the Shoji

some European customer — for good measure after
he and the second-hand man had wasted a beauti-
ful spring morning haggling over the things. " I 'm
not going to work any more," he told me glee-
fully the next time I happened along. "You
know why? No? Because my sawn" — he al-
ways pronounced it thus — "my sawn come back
from America. He is dentist. He makes much
money. He is head of family. I am go-inkyo
now." And sure enough he was go-inkyo before
the law and before his own clan, a willing second
where he should by right have been the first.
Sometimes I hardly believed he could be happy,
wandering about, overdressed and idle, after
thirty years of honest toil. But it seems he really
was. He who so often transplanted his roses now
transplanted his hopes; which were henceforth to
grow and flourish in the sun of the boy's success.
Meanwhile, whatever the youth, who was a very
modern young man, asked for he got, including a
"dental parlour" in a more fashionable quarter,
where he thought he would prefer to practise. The
sale of the old rose garden paid for that, leaving
enough over to fit up the place well. A few
further trifles which he wanted the old man dived

Curious Characteristics 199

into his savings and bought. What did it matter?
— the household might safely even run into debt a
little way, for soon the boy would redeem every-
thing and raise his old parents to a proud height
on which they had never stood before, thought
the old man. Alas! just when all was ready and
success had only to walk in through open doors,
the young man died suddenly. A few days after-
wards I met the father on the street and found it
hard to recognise my cheerful old friend in the
forlorn, stooped figure, the face grey and heavy
with grief. "Have you been ill, Rose-Garden
Man?" I asked him. "No," he replied simply
and half -foolishly. "I no sick. My sawn . . .
he dead." His own interest in life was gone — a
lamp flame blown out in a wind, and though a few
of his old friends bought him a little plot of land
and started him in a rose garden again, he never
succeeded. This second time not his body but
his spirit was go-inkyo, the "honourable retired
one" retired into the land of grief.

In most countries, it is generally admitted,
customs reflect the national character; the ring
through the Zulu's nose is also through his civilisa-
tion, so to speak; and hot curries mean hot tempers

2oo Behind the Shoji

in those who eat them. But to this rule Our
Little, Brown Allies are an exception, and the dif-
ficulty of judging their real character as reflected
by their habits, and of determining which of their
qualities are actually inborn, and which are taken
off and hung up before going to bed,, is largely in-
creased by the frock-coated outside covering the
Oriental inside. The greatest authorities, like
Lafcadio Hearn and Chamberlain often confess
themselves baffled and puzzled at finding ideals
and motives among the Japanese totally different
from those of the West t yet hidden away under
laws copied from Prance or Germany.

A complete analysis of Japanese character may
be impossible—and Hearn says it is — but certain
pronounced characteristics become presently ap-
parent to those who look carefully behind the
Shoji — and the greatest of these is curiosity.
Sometimes it appears only as a mere purposeless
sense of inquisitiveness such as leads persons liv-
ing in the same street to find out all about one
another. Almost any Japanese woman can tell
quickly and accurately the income of her neigh-
bours, how many servants they keep, how often
the master of the house takes too much sah$

Curious Characteristics 201

(wine), and what the children have for dinner.
Is it any wonder when the custom of the country
sanctions point-blank inquiries on personal mat-
ters from perfect strangers ; when the peasant who
meets me on the road wishes to know where I am
going; when a fellow-passenger in a train questions
me as to where I live and why I live there;, when
the nesans in a hotel look at my rings and boldly
ask what they cost; and when even the pack-
horse girl, whose beast of burden carries my trunk
to some mountain village, inquires what is in it
and where I bought it?

Again there is another kind of curiosity —
which is extremely purposeful— -the kind used by
the Government. It cannot be avoided or es-
caped; it cannot be outwitted. Like Providence,
it "seeth all things." It notes the comings and
goings of every traveller; it follows every foreign
army and naval officer during his stay in the
country; it insists that every hotel guest on
arrival shall fill out a page in a register as
big as a family Bible with his name, age,, oc-
cupation, colour, nationality, place of residence,
and probable hour of departure; it makes shops
send daily lists of their sales with names and

202 Behind the Shoji

addresses of buyers to the nearest recording
office.

Not content with this what one might call
"internal" inquisitiveness, it spreads itself to
every sphere in the whole Far East, where Japan
has, or might have, or hopes to have interests —
Korea, for example, and even China proper.
While waiting for a train in Pekin itself one day I
was amazed to find a little Japanese edging up to
me note-book in hand and inquiring, "Where are
you going?" My natural impulse was to answer,
"Is that any business of yours?" And indeed
what possible excuse had this little spy (he was
nothing but a mild variety of spy) for exercising
his impertinent curiosity in the capital of a foreign
country? He himself would have argued that in
political matters the end justifies the means, and
that the end and aim of the Japanese Govern-
ment is to be the one Government in the world
"from whom no secrets are hid." He might —
though naturally he would n't — have told me that
he was a link in the most excellently-organised
information chain in the world — that all over
China, and all through Pekin itself, there were
hundreds of others of his fellow-countrymen

Curious Characteristics 203

"snooping" just as he was "snooping." He
might also have given me some interesting in-
formation about the newspaper control offices
which form an important part of the whole secret
scheme and from one of which he was very likely
detached.

Abroad, these bureaus control whatever native
newspapers they can induce or frighten or bribe
with promises of subscriptions into adopting the
Japanese point of view or puffing the Japanese
policy. Did not the truth of this fact come to light
unexpectedly just the other day when an attempt
was made to assassinate the Prince Regent of
China and an independent local editor let the cat
out of the bag by saying, "The Chinese Govern-
ment has ordered Chinese newspapers not to dis-
cuss the matter. And further, the Japanese
Legation in Pekin has followed suit by giving the
same order to those journals under its control"?

In Japan a large part of the work of the news-
paper bureau is the reading of every newspaper
in every foreign language to see what it has to say
about Japan. Up and down the long columns a
picked staff of lynx-eyed translators search from
morning till night and nothing escapes them, not

204 Behind the Shoji

the humblest editorial, nor even an advertisement
of Samurai Brand Milk. Is there a bit of ridicule
wrapped up in a leading article? They find it,
they report it, but they never forgive it nor forget
it. Is there a correspondent whom they have
tried to impress with banquets and compliments,
but who has ignored these benefits and spoken un-
flattering truths? Now and then. Once quite a
well-known man whom they had feasted left
their country, travelled to Singapore and gave an
adverse opinion of his former hosts to a brother
editor there. His remarks appeared in the news-
papers as an ""Interview," and in due course they
lay on the table of the chief translator of the chief
information bureau, and he read them and pon-
dered sadly on the ingratitude of the white man.
But at the same time he caused a little black
mark to be placed against the correspondent's
name in the ledger reserved for cataloguing such
persons; and it is safe to predict that that man
will be hated by Our Little Brown Allies so long
as his life shall last with a hatred which will not
spend itself in loud complaints or bad language,
a hatred not "loud but deep." He would be
wiser never to return to Japan, for neither wel-

Curious Characteristics 205

come nor information will ever be given him there
again. Great sensitiveness to ridicule often goes
hand-in-hand with proportionate vindictiveness.

Next to their curiosity, the most striking char-
acteristic of Our Little Brown Allies is a strange
sense of irresponsibility which shows itself in
small things as well as large. Some one calls it
"the cloven hoof of Orientalism," and attempts to
explain its origin in the fatalistic teaching of the
oldest forms of Shintoism. That may or may not
be the truth, but whatever its origin, the char-
acteristic is now wide-spread. I find it, to quote
a humble instance, in the little butcher's shop in
Tokio where I have so often ordered my pro-
visions and so often failed to get them. Either
the butcher boy forgets to cut the steak or the
errand-boy forgets to deliver it. Worse still, when
I gently but firmly recite the tale of all the incon-
venience I suffer through their carelessness, I find
no becoming attitude of regret, no mental hang-
ing of guilty heads. Yes, they forget, they acknow-
ledge that, but they never seem to appreciate the
disgrace of breaking a contract however trifling.
My little confectioner is no more dependable. I
may have guests to tea, I may invite the Chief

206 Behind the Shoji

Justice and warn the baker of it, yet he makes no
special effort to remember my cakes, shows no
regret when he disappoints me, and, instead of
humbly promising to do better next time, simply
appears bored at my fretting.

Of course, when this same strain of Oriental
apathy — so paralysing to every kind of effort it
touches — attacks important matters, the results
are serious. Take the matter of railway acci-
dents, of such common occurrence in Japan that
Tokio Puck, the clever Japanese Fliegende Blatter,
lately printed a famous cartoon on the subject en-
titled, "A Funny Fenomenon." Two pictures
showed two trains of cars, the first entirely empty
of passengers except for the very end car, to which
those travellers who could not find places in the
overcrowded inside were hanging on outside by
grasping the window-sills; the second having the
travellers more evenly distributed — one old beggar
in the car nearest the engine, two soldiers in the
next, three peasants in the next, and the biggest
crowd also in the last car of all. Underneath, by
way of explanation, some quaint letterpress was
printed: "As always, trains having collision, pas-
sengers seem to be anxious for its dangers: and

Curious Characteristics 207

they are all getting on the last car. Therefore be-
ing empty of the rest of cars, officials shall fix the
fare as the following : — No fare for the closest one
of the locomotive, to reduce by half and insure
about their life for the next. Half-price only for
that next. And it will be commonly for the rest
as usual."

The reason why, with one accord, passengers
avoid proximity to the locomotive is because in
case of trouble the engineer — whom no sense of
responsibility keeps at a post become difficult or
dangerous — jumps off and leaves the boiler to
blow up if it wants to. With luck, it may only
blow up those in the car nearest to it, and with
great luck it may not blow up at all.

Much the same reliance on happy chance seems
to be the chief article of faith of the Japanese afloat
when he stands in authority. Certainly those
Japanese-captained launches which tear across the
swirling straits of Shemenoseki, which pass so close
to other wild craft that there is scarcely room for
anything but a word of command between them,
must rely on luck alone for a safe passage, I sup-
pose. Otherwise, how account for the captain's
serene eye, the crew's indifferent behaviour, as,

208 Behind the Shoji

steering wildly, cramming on full speed from pier
to pier, they dash across the intervening strip of
water as if it were an obstacle race?

A naval attachi who followed the manoeuvres of
the Japanese fleet critically during the late war
with Russia told me that he continually marvelled
how the Japanese battle-ships escaped sinking one
another. Many of their evolutions he described as
absolutely foolhardy — in curious contrast to the
pernickety care of the land troops, who sometimes
erred on the side of too little, rather than too much,
dash and initiative. "But how did the fleet get
through so brilliantly?" I suggested. "Luck —
of which the Japanese seem to have an abnormal
share — seldom deserted them," was his reply,
"and when it did, and they made mistakes, noth-
ing was said about the blunders." I could not
help thinking how typically Japanese this method
is. Spare no expense in advertising successes
and bury the failures quietly in the garden. Above
all, no coroner and no autopsy.

It is but fair to add that the splendid European
and Australian mail steamers of the Japanese
lines have an excellent reputation, though how
far this is due to the fact that they carry non-

Curious Characteristics 209

Japanese captains it would not be safe to judge.
The white commander is a necessary — if gall-
ing — concession which Our Little Brown Allies
are obliged to make to the white passenger
trade. On coasting lines throughout the Far
East they are, however, at liberty to please
themselves and patronise home industries, as
passengers who travel up and down Chinese or
Korean or Japanese coasts for their sins must
take what they can get or stay at home, the
choice of companies being generally limited to one,
and that one Japanese. All such travellers can
possibly expect is a British Chief Officer and
Chief Engineer as a guarantee that the fatalistic
policy may not be carried too far.

A certain British officer on the run between
Japan and North China gave me some curious in-
formation about what he described as the "goin's-
on" in the ships of his own company and the
irresponsibility of his subordinate Japanese officers.

"Our captain," said he, "now he 's a nice man,
kind, courteous, and as polite as the Prince of
Wales, but he has funny ideas sometimes, like
when I first came on board and found that though
we run into a fog thick as sealskin the siren was
14

210 Behind the Shoji

only going once in ten minutes. The idea fairly
gave me the shivers — on our course, too, which is
full of ships. So I said to him, just by way of a
suggestion, 'Don't you think, captain, we might
blow a little oftener considering we can't see ten
feet ahead?' But he just smiled kindly and said,
'Oh, no, it is not necessary; this is a lucky ship.
She has been through the war.' "

The younger officers my informant described
as frankly indifferent to their calling and deter-
mined never to allow their sense of duty to inter-
fere seriously with their personal comfort. On
the slightest pretext most of them would report
as unfit for work, neither thinking nor caring who
was to do their share of it for them. Our idea
of triumphing over slight inconveniences for the
sake of duty never seems to cross their minds. In
winter they have always "breathed the wind,"
that is, caught cold; in summer they suffer from
"summer weakness," and in the off-seasons they
have either "kake" or "no-byo."

Some of the more willing are pitiful specimens
of incapacity. One boy who came on board to be
assistant engineer threw himself entirely on the
mercy of the bluff old Welsh chief engineer, say-

Curious Characteristics 211

ing, "I am quite ignorant; please love me." He
certainly proved ignorant, but he never was loved
— at least not on that ship. Brought up from
childhood among engines and taught to respect
and care for them, the old Welshman had little
patience with the manner in which Japanese re-
gard machinery. His personal experience did not
lead him to be merciful to the greenhorn, and
besides, he had been for a long time on the run
to Korea and heard too often of the way the Jap-
anese recklessly drive their locomotives to pieces
from the Baldwin expert kept constantly at work
doctoring almost incurable cases. "No, I will
not love you," said he to the poor youth, "and
what is more, I will not have you. Go and
help the cook and mind you peel the potatoes
nicely."

With officers, other than engineers, there is, it
appears, no question of refusing unpromising
specimens. Take what the company sends and
make the best of it. "Not long ago," said the
chief officer, "the head office sent a young third
officer on board — a youth just out of school — no
knowledge, no certificates, nothing, in fact, but a
brand-new uniform, very bright buttons, a pleas-

212 Behind the Shoji

ant smile, and a frank letter from the Directors.
'We send you a new officer. Please takes care oj
him.' " As the ship was short-handed at the time,
the young man was set about simple duties im-
mediately, but even these he was not allowed to
do without serious misgivings on the part of his
superior. Presently he complained to his friends
the Directors that he was not being given any
responsible work, so after a few weeks' training
he was allowed to take a watch. "I gave him a
week to make a mess of things," said the chief
officer, "and sure enough before the week was over
a wrong entry appeared in the log. It was
pointed out to the young man. ' If your entry is
right,' said his superior officer, 'you should be in
quite a different latitude. But as it is wrong you
happen to be three points off your course and close
to a dangerous reef.' The price of his inattention
and folly might have been heavy yet all he did
when he heard of it was to reply in a meaningless
tone, 'I am very sorry,' and then laugh. I could
have forgiven the poor young idiot his mistake,"
said the Britisher, "but that laugh rankled for
years, until I found out what it really meant."
No wonder. That misplaced laugh has made

Curious Characteristics 213

more enemies for Our Little Brown Allies than all
their other characteristics put together, for strang-
ers are slow to realise that in Japan laughter does
not always indicate pleasure, that on the contrary-
it may mean many other things, such as nervous-
ness or an attempt at self-control. How many
missionaries have been horrified to find that on
reading the story of the Crucifixion to a class the
pupils laugh! How many school-teachers have
been equally horrified to find that on being asked
to describe some event of the hour scholars will
dramatically tell the story of a poor creature who
has been run into by a tram and cut in two, and
then laugh as though the tragedy was a huge
joke. At first they do not know that this is not
the laugh humorous but the laugh nervous, the
very same laugh with which a Japanese will an-
nounce the death of a near and dear relative.
But even when they do find out the truth, some
Europeans never survive the shock which the ap-
parent heartlessness gives them. "I will never
like the Japanese," said an American globe-trotter
to me one day, "they are a terrible people. Just
imagine, a Japanese lady friend of mine, when I
inquired after her eldest son, replied, 'Oh, thank

2i4 Behind the Shoji

you very much, he died yesterday,' and as she said
it she laughed pleasantly."

Of no avail were excuses or explanations to
change the heart of this stranger. I tried to tell
her that the poor Japanese lady was no more
callous than any other mother. Her laugh, con-
sidered aright, was really an admirable thing,
rooted in unselfishness. "Do not sadden others
by intruding your personal grief upon them," says
the old Bushido code, and she, as a well-bred per-
son, was only trying to carry out the noble pre-
cept when she was so bitterly misjudged.

"Well, what you say may be true," retorted the
American lady, "but I guess we diverge too much
upon the sense of humour for white and yellow to
have any real sympathy with one another."

CHAPTER XII

THE AWKWARD AGE

\ X 7HAT makes Our Little Brown Allies still
™ * more difficult to judge than they would
otherwise be — what gives rise to half their con-
tradictory characteristics — is the transition period
through which they are now passing. A dainty
and beautiful race-childhood lies behind them,
an ugly adolescence before, and, as they stand
between the two at present, they display all
the peculiarities belonging to the age known as
"awkward."

Of course many of these peculiarities will of
themselves drop off again when Young Japan out-
grows the "flapper stage." But a few others may
need to be knocked off by some of those little
punishments which are indispensable to the
proper upbringing of a young person.

The fact is, Young Japan is a typical specimen
of the spoiled child, clever, given to mimicking the

.215

216 Behind the Shoji

household guests before they are outside the draw-
ing-room door, and quite beyond the control of the
older generation, who never see her come into
the room without trembling for their heirlooms,
the most precious of which, the fragile vase of
Courtesy, her blundering fingers have already
chipped and cracked almost beyond recognition.
What a pity ! It was so dear to the old people —
how dear we can perhaps judge by what a simple
schoolboy wrote forty years ago when the subject
of "Etiquette" was given out to his class for a
theme. "Courtesy," said this lad in all serious-
ness, "is the greatest thing in the world. The
possession of it separates us from the animals.
Monkeys do not understand the rules of courtesy,
therefore they are animals."

"Do you think that the new generation would
express such sentiments?" says a charming old
professor who taught the grandfathers of to-day,
and who comes periodically to sit upon my mats
and bitterly deplore in sympathetic ears the way
Young Japan is allowing that separating gulf of
which the lad wrote to become narrower and nar-
rower. He, and such as he, would wish to stop
the growing rudeness either by patching up the

The Awkward Age 217

older forms of politeness and making them fit for
use,, or, if they look out of keeping with the new
fashions and factories, by urging the importa-
tion of manners from the West to match the
new style of civilisation. But what can a small
minority do except offer an occasional protest? A
gentleman of the old school may get up in a tram
now and then and give his seat to a poor woman
holding a heavy baby, saying, "Honourably ex-
cuse the unpoliteness of youth," as he looks at
the rows of hulking schoolboys and apprentices
seated cm the benches. But his action does not
make them ashamed. Not a bit of it. If they
emerge sufficiently from the absorbing contempla-
tion of their own affairs to notice the example at
all, it is only with a feeling of pity for one who
might have enjoyed his own comfort yet delib-
erately gave it up for a woman. The man who
lets politeness carry him that length must be a
fool, they would certainly think if they troubled
to think at all; he is not fit to follow; and not
even fit to argue with, especially when the subject
admits of no argument. "Ladies last," not
"Ladies first," is the sensible rule for keeping in its
place an inferior sex. Now, if the old gentleman

218 Behind the Shoji

had suggested to the buxom wench in the corner
that she should yield her place to him, they might
have felt some respect for his common-sense. As
it was, he is nearly as bad, from their point of view,
as the young Englishman who, when he saw a
Japanese lady and her husband enter a tram,
naturally rose and offered his place, and then
looked astonished and irritated when the husband
sat down in the vacant seat after many grateful
bows and appreciative phrases about the stranger's
courtesy. "This young man," said the Japanese
to his wife, "must have heard that I am the man-
ager of a Government bank, and is no doubt show-
ing me this consideration partly on account of my
position and partly for political reasons."

All parents know that the more precocious a
child is the less it should be complimented to its
face. Tell little Willie that he is a promising
child and he will promise to your heart's content,
and only perform when absolutely necessary.
That is, he will let his reputation carry him just
as far as it will and only get off and walk when the
old horse cannot go another step. Equally, tell
Mariana that she is a pretty girl and she will be
spending half her time looking in the glass and the

The Awkward Age 219

other half sitting around in the hope that some-
body will repeat that compliment.

This is exactly what has happened to Young
Japan. The neighbours have spoiled her. ' ' What
a pretty child! What a bright pupil!" has been
sounded in her ears for so long that the perpetual
praise, like some poisonous drug, has created a
strong desire for a continually -increased dose and
made her willing to stoop to any methods for the
sake of obtaining it. Quality even has become
immaterial; any praise will do — the world's if
possible, if not the individual's — only some
approbation must be forthcoming.

Without doubt the late war with Russia as-
sisted Our Little Brown Allies to obtain the sooth-
ing drug which does them such harm in the opinion
of their genuine well-wishers. During that cam-
paign they behaved so well that nobody could deny
them praise. They fought manfully; they were
generous; they encouraged the Y.M.C.A. They
displayed at all times a commendable modesty and
much self-sacrifice; they abstained from vain-
glorious boasting. The harder the strain, the
greater dignity they used to hide their anxiety.
The Government kept a cool head throughout, fed

220 Behind the Shoji

the people on promises when they showed signs
of becoming restive, and though it trembled often
enough with anxiety (statesmen were almost in de-
spair over the obstinate resistance of Port Arthur,
and as nervous as cats before Tsushima) it kept a
brave face and brought the war to a successful
conclusion, much to the surprise of everybody in
Asia.

Then when the hour of trial was over the peo-
ple kissed their hand to the whole human race
and climbed down off their pedestal to gather the
wreaths laid at their feet by admiring friends.
The attitude, I must say, was unbecoming and
ungraceful, and by the rapidity with which they
assumed it the Japanese made themselves ridic-
ulous, for nothing, more 's the pity, as they were
frankly disappointed in the tributes paid them
on this occasion. Far too many were inscribed
"To the most martial people in the world," or
"To the people who are born soldiers," and many
of Our Little Brown Allies read a hint of mediaeval
taste for barbarity between the lines. A Japanese
lady of education, who had been studying the pa-
pers from abroad which pointed out at that time
that the Japanese were excellent soldiers because,

The Awkward Age 221

more than any other soldiers, they delighted in war,
remarked to me, in quite an aggrieved tone, "The
West pretends that Japan loves to fight. But it
is not so. She was forced into the war to de-
fend the right." Well, of course she was— the
right to gobble Korea quickly and half of Manchu-
ria slowly. A certain celebrated professor, how-
ever, got immediate secret orders to explain the
situation, leaving out the part about the gobbling
process, and he accordingly did prove by algebra
that the Japanese are just as humane as other
people, and rather more so, and that they only
fight when absolutely necessary. The point mis-
understood by other nations is not that they do
not wish to fight but that, "By jingo! when they
do," their patriotism makes them do it splendidly
to a man.

! I am sorry to contradict the professor, only I
happen to know that every soldier who was drafted
off to the war did not run to it as a child runs to his
mother, with all the beautiful eagerness the Jap-
anese Government tried to make believe he did.
Neither did every family send its sons to death and
glory with unctuous satisfaction. The picture of
fond parents pressing a cholera belt as a parting

222 Behind the Shoji

gift into the hand of their first-born and telling
him to think of nothing but the commands of his
Emperor until Russia was wiped off the map is a
little overdrawn. The truth is, no country has
the monopoly of any one virtue or is exempt from
any particular failing. There were reluctant
parents in Japan as elsewhere, and there were
occasional outcroppings of cruelty, one especially
notable. It was the case of a poor old couple
living near Tokio, who, having but a single son to
support them in their declining years, pleaded that
he might be excused from military duty and re-
main at home to cheer their old eyes and earn their
rice and daikon (pickled radish). They probably
pestered the War Office. I can imagine them with
all the patience of Oriental old age, waiting in
corridors, pouring their grievances into the ears of
everybody who got within earshot, even the hall
porter, urging, begging, entreating. Finally the
War Office replied courteously that the son should
remain at home, and without doubt they went
away congratulating one another on their diplo-
macy, poor old things ! But as the only condition
on which the favour would be granted was that
he should report himself at headquarters immedi-

The Awkward Age 223

ately, they sent the youth off at once with a heart
full of joyful expectation. That whole afternoon
they waited impatiently for his return. Three
o'clock, four o'clock, five o'clock — he did not
come. Then just at nightfall a niguruma (hand-
cart) appeared at the door, and when the old
couple hurried out to see what had arrived for
them, to their horror the men in charge handed
them the dead body of their boy, remarking
simply, "He shall remain at home with you."
Diabolical? Perhaps, but true, if the young
recruits called at the same time are to be believed.
The War Office would say they are not. Still, I
know of at least half a dozen ready to vouch for
the story — as they are equally ready to vouch for
the story of two of their comrades buried alive
in a Tokio barrack-yard for deserting.

Things like these, however, are only whispered
in friendly circles; they have never gotten abroad,
and so the world, though it may have suspected
that a few savage instincts lurked under Japan's
false shirt-front, continued to pander to Japanese
vanity, having no proofs to make it do otherwise.
Great Britain took the lead by suppressing The
Mikado lest the operetta wound delicate sensi-

224 Behind the" Shoji

bilities, and was at once repaid for the sacrifice by
deepest gratitude voiced by all the Japanese news-
papers. "Thank you so much for not allowing
us to be made ridiculous— even on the stage," they
all said between the lines. The Yomiuri, ru-
moured to be the official organ of Marquis Saionji,
then Premier, went still further, and after con-
gratulating Great Britain on having taken a step
in the right direction proposed that the ban should
also be laid upon The Geisha. " Now that people
throughout the world are so anxious to learn the
true character of the Japanese nation," the editor
made bold to say, "and that the existence of such
plays — which constitute a real affront to the good
name of Japan — are calculated to do great harm to
Japan's fame and seriously mislead the English
public, we would feel deeply grateful to Great
Britain for prohibiting them all."

Articles like this set me thinking of what a
lucky thing it is Shakespeare did not mention the
cherry blossom instead of the rose in that Httle
passage about smelling as sweet under another
name, and did not stain Iago brown instead of
black, else we might have lost him too, perhaps —
waked up one morning and found him sacrificed on

The Awkward Age 225

the altar of Japanese vanity! And think of the
risks we have run with our Old Masters! Sup-
pose — only suppose — Reynolds or Burne-Jones
had painted the devil in a kimono! Would apolo-
gies have availed to save that picture? Could we
have hoped to pass it off as "an attempt at the
Black Prince in a tennis suit"?

Hardly. In the end, I feel sure, we should have
been obliged to smudge the masterpiece out, and
Our Little Brown Allies, knowing full well the
advertising value of the picturesque 1 sacrifice,
would have felt, as we did it, increased pride in
themselves for thus giving us an opportunity Of
earning a measure of kudos while obliging them.

It is a favourite method of their own for calling
attention to their perfections — this ostentatious
putting behind them of Satan and other mis-
chievous persons or habits. Schoolboys like noth-
ing better than to burn sakS bottles and geishas
in effigy at the New Year festival, and then listen
to the chorus of "How noble!" that greets them
afterwards. Samurai maidens like to commit
suicide when somebody throws a geta (wooden
shoe) at the Empress just by way of sensational
atonement.

IS

226 Behind the Shoji

But the nation can no more live up to this
standard every day than we could ask for the but-
ter every morning in blank verse, and the mad
chase after success, the burning desire for ad-
miration, makes them still less able to do so. Alas !
vanity is a form of indulgence which inevitably
narrows the minds of those that practise it, and
finally induces all sorts of "funny complaints,"
like tale-bearing, back-biting, and petty jealousy.
A few examples will explain better than anything
else what I mean.

Last year, at the Exhibition in Tokio, a man
who had exhibited some statuary — very beautiful,
but yet not beautiful enough to gain the first
prize — quietly walked into the hall of fine arts and
shattered the marbles into fragments in a petty and
totally unworthy spite against the judges. A
photographer's assistant, who had exhibited in the
same place and was actuated by the same mean
motives, broke his frames, splintered his glass, and
tore up his prints because they had gained no
more than "Honourable mention."

In several instances I have known men who
wanted a position and failed to get it deliberately
attempt to oust a successful rival by publishing a

The Awkward Age 227

scandalous article about him in the newspapers.
This form of revenge, indeed, is quite common in
Japan, and will, no doubt, continue to be while
editors allow their columns to be used as scurrilous
public vehicles for private animosity. The worst
feature of the case is that they can do so with
impunity as the law of libel is such a clumsy thing
in Japan that a private individual, even if he
has been accused of the most outrageous things,
scarcely ever invokes it. No one will believe the
scandal, he hopes, and meanwhile he keeps a dig-
nified and disgusted silence. Not so the long-suf-
fering politician, who has not, on the whole, usually
suffered longer than he deserves. If called a liar
in public he will bring the cumbersome statute in-
to action, but the insult must have been public.
Otherwise, even he will hush the matter up, pre-
ferring to swallow an unpalatable truth rather
than risk a cause celebre which might easily
get into the foreign newspapers and harm the
reputation of his country. Really, after all, the
underlying feeling of the nation is very like
that of a society woman who cares little for
scars that don't show. What she dreads nowa-
days is a pimple on her neck that every one

228 Behind the Shoji

can see when she appears dicolletS at some
fashionable gathering.

Such then are some of the trivial ways in which
Young Japan "does not realise the poster." But
the most serious indictment against her is in-
gratitude. For more than a quarter of a century
now Our Little Brown Allies have sat at the feet
of Western teachers in order to pick their brains,
as an Irishman would say. Have those teachers
been treated with the respect, the reverence which
people who hold the recipes for guns and battle-
ships and billiard-tables have a right to expect?
No, indeed. Once the Japanese have learned all
they wish to know they have dismissed their mas-
ters with scant ceremony, and sometimes with a
lack of consideration that almost amounts to
cruelty.

The late war with Russia is also largely re-
sponsible for the development of this bad quality
and in all fairness I can hardly see how such a series
of unparalleled successes could have done other-
wise. Beginning the campaign as the Japanese
did in all nervousness and trepidation, when they
found that neither was necessary, that the great-

The Awkward Age 229

est power in Europe, the biggest, the richest, the
one that could put most men into the field, was
only a huge bogey which toppled over when little
Japan said "shoo" to it, was it any wonder if the
tremendous revulsion of feeling brought on an en-
largement of the cranial bones- — commonly known
as "swelled head"?

The complaint is at present complicated with
an abnormal looseness of the tongue among other
symptoms. Reserve, in the commonest form of
politeness, is being thrown off. It becomes the
fashion to speak one's mind among the common
people, and the children frankly sing in chorus as
a foreign lady passes down a Tokio street, " Foreign
fool with the eyes of a cat" (so blue or hazel eyes
are always referred to in Japan). Equally, among
the more educated a cynical attitude towards the
West is being adopted. A young Japanese who
had been reading about the German scare in the
British papers said in a pitying tone to an English
lady lately, "I am very anxious about your
British army." "You may well be," was her
angry retort, "for the more its efficiency diminishes
the more disgrace to you when you are ultimately
beaten by it."

230 Behind the Shoji

She referred to the phrase often heard in a tone
of supreme self-satisfaction from Japanese lips
to-day — always unofficial lips, of course — "We
shall fight England next and then Germany."
How long ago was it that Japan was very humbly
asking for an alliance and the moral support of the
nation which she now affects to despise? Scarcely
eight years, yet some Japanese schools are already
using as a text-book a pamphlet on The Decline
and Fall of the British Empire. The humble stu-
dent has already become the arrogant critic,
determined to avoid the mistakes of a nation
which has, so to speak, had its day, and whose
face is now turned towards the setting sun.

Well, a great nation can afford to meet this in-
gratitude with equanimity. But an unfortunate
individual, insignificant and poor, is in a very dif-
ferent position. If, like Lafcadio Hearn, his
literary talent can command a circle of readers he
may bring his wrongs to public notice — and a lot
of practical good it does him! — if not, he is denied
even this satisfaction, though his case be equally
pathetic, and Japanese employers are not above
trading on his helplessness, more shame to them!

Among half a dozen peremptory dismissals

The Awkward Age 231

which have come within my own knowledge, the
case of a certain poor little man who, in vulgar
parlance, was "given the sack" two years ago
stands out for its unnecessary unkindness. The
man was an exemplary character — by profession a
teacher. Term after term he lavished time and
patience conscientiously upon little boys in Tokio
— ugly, stupid little boys — for a salary quite out
of proportion to his expenditure of either. There
was no reason to suppose that he would not have
continued so to do till the end of his days and,
accordingly, he took his usual holiday during the
particular summer which was to prove so fatal to
him with an easy mind, only returning to Tokio
a day or two before school should open, according
to his usual habit. Imagine then his consterna-
tion when, as he was planning to take up work
again, a friend upbraided him for slyness in re-
signing his position and allowing a new teacher
to be appointed without telling his intimates.
"Why," complained the friend, "did you allow
us to read such a thing first in a newspaper?"

The little teacher was thunderstruck. He re-
sign? This was the first he had heard of his re-
tirement or of a successor. Could it be true that

232 Behind the Shoji

without giving reasons or notice his employers had
turned him adrift? Unfortunately he found that
it could, and as he depended for his meagre living
on his teaching, the little man had to alternately
entreat and threaten every official in Tokio till
they wearied of his persistence and gave him a
miserable appointment in a country school to quiet
him. As for the reason of his dismissal, it was
never divulged. Most likely the foreign teacher's
place was required for a native, employers pre-
ferring to "patronise home industry." But does
that necessity excuse the Japanese for using such
cunning and secrecy towards a helpless dependant
whom they might have turned away decently and
kindly? Certainly not!

I may add that the policy turned out to be a
very mistaken one, and that the very next year
Fate avenged the poor little professor in this wise.
A Japanese dock company in Nagasaki, taking a
leaf out of the Government's book, summarily
dismissed a foreign employe and got hoist with
their own petard over the action. The man in
question was a fearless old Scotch engineer, an
expert in his line. He had been in the Japanese
service for fifteen years, believed his position was

The Awkward Age 233

secure for life, and had therefore bought land,
built himself a house, and taken unto himself a wife.
Suddenly the company took it into their heads
that they knew all he knew and could dispense
with his services. "I '11 believe it when I see it,"
retorted the engineer, as, much to the astonish-
ment of his former employers, he added to the size
of his garden and quietly remained in Nagasaki.
"They'll need me yet," he told commiserating
friends with a chuckle. And sure enough they
did — not six months afterwards, when a foreign
Government gave the company an order for seven
river gunboats. In due course the ships were com-
pleted, and the builders were "puffed up with
pride," until their work was inspected, and the
purchasers refused to take delivery because, the
engines having been placed too far forward, the
vessels were too low in the water. The Japanese
engineers had made mistakes in their plans — mis-
takes they could neither find nor rectify. Then
with superb sang-froid they turned to the outcast
Scotchman and asked him to help them. But he
wouldn't. They begged. He refused. They
entreated. He stood firm. At last they pro-
mised money, anything, and he agreed to submit

234 Behind the Shoji

his terms, which were a permanent position and
ten thousand yen compensation. Over these two
stipulations they haggled and bargained for a week,
but at last they accepted because there was no
other way to save the gunboats, and the despised
and rejected foreigner set to work, practically
rebuilt five of the boats, and rectified as far as pos-
sible the construction of the other two, which could
not, however, be handed over to the Government
that ordered them. Marked "Slightly soiled,"
they are still awaiting a purchaser.

CHAPTER XIII

SOME OLD-FASHIONED VIRTUES AND CUSTOMS

T~"\EEP underlying these ugly qualities of
*—* Young Japan there still remain a few gentle
virtues, handed down from ancient times, and
and though, year by year, it takes sharper eyes
to spy them out, the result well repays the trouble,
for among Our Little Brown Allies the best quali-
ties are certainly the oldest, taking "best" in the
sense of "admiration compelling" rather than
as merely "capable of winning quick worldly
advancement."

Of course the first and most glorious of all
these virtues is loyalty and love for the divinely-
descended Emperor and his family. It is a cult,
almost a religion — a wider form of the bond be-
tween servant and master, or retainer and prince
— a sentiment higher than the love of parents for
children, closer than the tie between friend and
friend, stronger than the fear of death itself. None

235

236 Behind the Shoji

is so poor, none so humble, that he dare not feel
it; none so proud, none so powerful, that he scorns
to own it. Our Western sovereigns, with the
possible exception of Emperor William, who must
gnash his teeth with envy when he sees the Divine
Rights willingly given to his colleague in Japan,
have almost forgotten what this flattering unction
feels like. No more pedestals for them. Shaking
hands with the engine-driver, that 's about what
their functions have come down to ! That's what is
demanded by a popular taste which can neither un-
derstand nor sympathise with a sense of reverence.
Yet, as seen in Japan, one feels instinctively
reverence is a good and noble thing. An old
peasant woman tells me solemnly , that on the
Crown Prince's arrival in her little town she will
go out and "worship" him, using the word that
she uses for the gods, and I almost envy her the
sense of dignity, of retirement, of mystery in which
she wraps her future sovereign. He comes, it is
true, in a panama hat, a frock coat, brown boots,
and other paraphernalia in which ideals are not
usually dressed. But what does that matter to
the idealist? True faith can overlook an anach-
ronism as easily as move a mountain.

Old-Fashioned Virtues 237

Moreover, true faith, however rude or humble,
is never ridiculous. When I see the faces of Im-
perial pictures in Tokio bazaars covered with little
flaps of white paper, I do not even want to smile.
I simply ask the reason, and the little stall-keeper
solemnly explains that it is because Kitsune (fox
goblins) have been known to enter and take pos-
session of uncovered portraits, and, naturally, the
Imperial Family must not be exposed to such
risks. Mercifully, that little shopkeeper is totally
devoid of a sense of humour. Otherwise, as she
looked day after day at those fearful oleograph
caricatures of His Majesty and the Empress and
their grandchildren, dressed in ludicrous travesties
of foreign clothes, some of her tremendous stock
of veneration would surely ooze away. The fact
that it does n't — that neither she nor any other
soul in Japan sees anything amusing in the
travesties of their ruler and his spouse, or in the
Crown Prince's first-born with his magenta bib
and "candle-shade" hat — only shows how thor-
oughly the critical attitude has been eradicated
from the nation in such matters.

If it needed further proving, a war always
proves abundantly what a very real cult this Em-

238 Behind the Shoji

peror worship is. Twenty years ago schoolboys,
on being asked to write down their dearest wish,
always answered with one accord, "to die for our
Emperor," and, even allowing for a little hypo-
crisy, many of the answers must have been spon-
taneous and genuine. The percentage, if the
experiment were tried to-day, would be scarcely as
large, for the Japanese youth is growing some-
what more selfish, but quite enough of the old
spirit still remains to startle the world with
an occasional proof showing tragic depths of
unselfishness.

There was an instance only lately. A young
reserve officer on the outbreak of the last war con-
sidered it his duty to volunteer for special service.
But he had the misfortune to be poor and a wid-
ower, with few friends, and no relations except one
little daughter, whom he loved so passionately
that he feared and dreaded to leave her among
strangers. Whatever he did, wherever he went,
he knew that, even if she was well cared for, the
thought of her would stand between him and his
duty to his Emperor. Therefore, like Virginius in
old Rome, he called the child to him, fondled her
tenderly for one last time, and then plunged a

Old-Fashioned Virtues 239

knife into her little breast, and set out from his
desolate home a free man and single-hearted.

Such sacrifices, rare and curious as they are
nowadays, were common enough once upon a time.
Half the old plays turn upon similar incidents,
the most famous being the true legend of the
Samurai, who gives his only son to save his
sovereign lord's heir, and feels proud to do so. I
know the American globe-trotter who complained
about the Japanese mother smiling when she told
of her son's death would call the action inhuman
and unnatural. So it may seem at first sight;
yet when one looks deeper into the motives of it
how supremely noble! Imagine the father, with
smiling face, sitting beside his lord's enemy, into
whose friendship and confidence he has wormed
himself, the better to complete his sacrifice — sit-
ting at the school-house door, and, as the children
troop out with careless, unsuspecting feet, whis-
pering, "That is the one," as his own son passes
by! Imagine him afterwards, when the villain —
having done his ' bloody deed — brings him the
severed head in a lacquer box, calmly lifting the
lid himself, gazing at the glassy eyes of his first-
born, and saying cheerfully, "You have killed

240 Behind the Shoji

wisely. That is the great lord's son," and then
bowing the man politely off as he starts back to his
master with the gruesome burden! Finally, im-
agine that father returning slowly to a desolate
home, with only the consciousness of flawless
loyalty to sustain him and without even the gentle
consolation of tears — for a Samurai might not
weep. Then judge whether his affection for his
master, his self-denial, courage, and sense of duty
are not fine and admirable qualities!

To belittle the sacrifice by pretending the
Samurai was a heartless parent might be an easy
explanation of the incident, but it would be a
grossly unfair one. That man must have loved
his son with an absorbing love, for all Japanese
fathers idolise their children. Doubly so because,
as tradition and custom forbid men in Japan to
look upon their wives except as chattels, on whom
it would be bad taste to lavish affection, all the
devotion of which they are capable goes to those
bright little creatures who alone are the mirth
and adornment of Japanese homes, "serving their
parents for playthings and for picture-galleries."

I have seen among Our Little Brown Allies dirty
children, spoiled children, rude children, but

Old-Fashioned Virtues 241

never unwelcome or unloved children. The
strongest, roughest man among them melts into
tenderness towards a child. Kurumayas turn
from their gambling and desert their saki
bottles after a long day's run to trundle a little
creature about in their kuruma for its pleasure;
workmen carry a soft, crumpled scrap of baby-
hood in their arms for an airing no matter how
weary they themselves may be. Carters, what-'
ever their hurry, always stop to pick up a grimy
urchin playing at sand-castles in the middle of a
crowded road and set it safely on one side.

In return, old-fashioned young people, if such
a contradictory expression is permissible, treat
their elders with consideration and respect. Jap-
anese translations of Moliere's works have -been
suppressed by common consent simply because
they ridiculed old age. Public opinion would not
tolerate plays like Fourberies de Scapin, which de-
picted fathers made the butt of gross wit by their
children, which showed youth always victorious
at the expense of age. They positively horrified a
people who count filial piety one of the chief
virtues. "We will not see parental authority de-
throned and undermined," said Our Little Brown
16

242 Behind the Shoji

Allies, considering the question from the broad
standpoint of social expediency. Nor can they
afford to do so while the present clan and family
system exists in Japan. Their communal cult,
which for centuries has been found so perfectly
adapted to the needs of the nation, demands the
discouraging of any act of disrespect from the
younger towards the older members of a family as
the price of teachings which have inspired — and
still inspire — many charming acts of devotion.

Daughters, even nowadays, who sell themselves
for the maintenance of their parents, are sure of
extravagant praise. Sons, who feel no shame over
the most humble parentage but gladly share their
prosperity with the old people, are always com-
mended. One lad I knew, as soon as he had
climbed into a good situation in Tokio, spent all his
meagre savings in removing his old father and
mother nearer him, and not only their conserv-
ative selves but their weather-beaten country
cottage as well, because the old people dreaded
new surroundings. Another youth, a country
kurumaya, drew his old mother all the way to
Tokio, a distance of more than a hundred miles, so
that on her seventieth birthday she might have the

Old-Fashioned Virtues 243

pleasure of seeing the sights of the capital. A
third hastily went out and married a wife be-
cause his work required his absence from home
all day, and he wanted some one in the house to
nurse his old father whom he would not trust to a
servant liable to depart suddenly.

Apart,from these instances of a younger genera-
tion acknowledging and paying a debt to the older,
very pretty cases of gratitude towards comparative
strangers existed among the simpler Japanese
society of, say, forty years ago, and they still
exist in isolated individuals notwithstanding the
growing spirit of ingratitude which we cannot
help noticing in Young Japan. An old, old man,
from whom I once bought a few trifles in the little
village of Ikao, walked for three days across the
mountains to bring me a gift of fresh eggs and
humble greetings when he heard I was atNikko
the next year. My landlord in Kamakura, an
aged Buddhist priest to whom I occasionally
gave cake or lump sugar, presented me regularly
with the first fruits of his tiny garden — new
potatoes hard as little pebbles, and cobs of corn.
Also, if ever I failed to return from a walk until
after dark, he followed me, in spite of his seventy

244 Behind the Shoji

years, with a lantern, remarking quaintly, "I
have come to protect you."

Dear old man, he was the most perfect in-
carnation of the old spirit of kindliness and grace
as he prayed to his gilded god or fed the tame doves
which fluttered down from temple roofs, and the
best possible advertisement for the gentle influ-
ence of Buddhism. Alas! he himself was forced
to admit that this influence is decaying!

"The ideas of the West have burst into our
Buddhist peace," he would say sadly, "and the
new generation of our people like to call themselves
free-thinkers or sceptics. But to me it seems that
these are merely new-fashioned names for selfish-
ness and the growing desire for luxurious living.
I hear that rich men in the big cities now spend
five hundred yen a month on their pleasure alone;
that is, they spend on unnecessary things enough
to support a hundred Japanese lives for that
period. I hear, too, that even the old Samurai
families, who once scorned to think of money, are
now becoming greedy and grasping. Their excuse
for being so is the sudden increase of prices and
standards. 'Our daughters,' some of my old
friends tell me, 'are no longer content with the

Old-Fashioned Virtues 245

koto and the samisen; they desire to have a
piano.' But do these men ever stop to wonder
why? Do they ask themselves if it is for real love
of Western music? Do they inquire whether un-
derneath the request there is some noble motive, or
just the mean desire to have a new and expensive
form of noise like some neighbour? Alas! no, for
these men themselves are becoming a prey to the
disquieting new conditions, and their conduct
makes me wonder what is to become of the old
virtues of simplicity and self-denial," said he as
he shook his bald old head sadly.

Thereupon, to comfort him, for he was a good
old man, I told him a story to prove how gentle
and pitiful men will still be sometime^, even men
who are "free-thinkers" and live in cities.

Quite near my little house in Tokio there was a
tiny bird-cage of boards and shingles. It enclosed
only two rooms — a larger and a smaller one,
scarcely six feet square. And in this tiny box
there lived a poor crippled man whose wife had
deserted him, whose child was dead. None re-
mained to care for him, and so the neighbours,
touched by his helplessness, allowed him to live
in the little tumble-down shanty rent free. He

246 Behind the Shoji

was unable to work, scarcely able to crawl about,
and yet he clung to life with all the pitiful eager-
ness of the useless and the unhappy. In order to
buy rice to keep himself alive he rented the smaller
room to a poor student, a kindly country boy, and
for months and years he dragged out his meagre
existence without comfort, without pleasure, ex-
cept when some neighbour brought him a] flower.
At last the student was called home to his military
service, and as it was unlikely that another tenant
would soon be found for the tumble-down room
he inquired about sending the poor cripple to the
' ' yoikuin, ' ' literally, ' ' the home of rest, ' ' plainly, the
workhouse. Everything was at last arranged and
the day upon which he was to enter his new home
decided upon. Then the boy spent an afternoon
begging a little money from the neighbours in
order to give the poor cripple one perfect day of
pleasure before he was shut up for ever. And
poor as they were they gave according to what
they had, some ten sen, some twenty, some only
one. When two or three yen were gathered to-
gether the boy returned home and told the cripple
what he had done. Then, next morning, he
washed the poor helpless creature, dressed him in

Old-Fashioned Virtues 247

a clean kimono, tenderly lifted him into a kuruma,
and together they started off for the great day.

"Where will you honourably be pleased to go?"
asked the boy. "Take me to Hibiya Park, that
I may see the bright flowers," said the poor fellow,
and accordingly he was slowly wheeled to each
bed and given a sight and a smell of the loveli-
ness laid out there. Then there followed a deli-
cious dinner, and sake besides, and finally, at the
very last hour before sunset, the boy and his
charge drew up at the workhouse gates, the boy
pressing into the cripple's hand the few sen left
over in order that he might buy himself cigarettes
when he felt inclined.

Could any age or country show a more perfect
act of unselfishness than that of the young student
whose last day in the gay capital, before he started
off for some country garrison, was spent in pouring
a little of the holy ointment of happiness over a
sad life?

When I had finished the story the priest smiled
happily and said, "The old virtues are not yet
gone then!"

Not yet. Some remain, as some of the old
customs remain, and some of the picturesqueness

248 Behind the Shoji

of the past. Kioto, the queen city, for example, is
still a "many-tinted fairy tale." Seen at night,
when darkness blots out Jhe factory chimneys, she
might still be a city of the Samurai days; she
might still be the seat of the Shogunate.

If the traveller hurries he may yet find won-
derful processions in honour of dusty gods and
goddesses winding up the Maruyama Pleasure
Hill towards one of the glorious temples situated
there. He may see, if he does not delay, the
most wonderful old costumes of brocades stiff with
gold, the most splendid suits of armour, the most
cunningly-wrought swords. He may see, too, all
along the route of the procession, the houses
thrown open so that it is easy for the passer-by to
look in and enjoy a, glimpse of priceless old family
heirlooms, such as golden screens or fans with,
perhaps, a single bursting blue wave upon them
which will give him a delicious sensation of cool-
ness. Very likely some of these householders
will invite him, with wonderful courtesy, to sit
with their friends on the white mats and observe
the passing crowd, which is sure to be interesting —
the geishas, in double jinrickshas, twittering like
sparrows in the curious falsetto trebles which

Old-Fashioned Customs 249

make them easily distinguishable anywhere; the
old men with their hair tied up on top of their
heads in the fashion of last century, and their old
wives with blackened teeth, who stop to stare
with the good-natured curiosity of countryfolk;
or the children toddling by, resplendent in bright-
coloured- festival robes, with little "0 Mamori"
(gay, embroidered bags containing paper charms,
invoking the blessing of the sacred dog, Mit-
sumune, who keeps off robbers) tied to their sashes,
and underneath their geta (wooden clogs) tiny,
tinkling bells, so that in case the fidgety little
creatures stray, they may be easily traced.

The beauty of the festival decorations alone
is a continual delight to the stranger. There will
be national flags and sprigs of pine before each
entrance, and every street is prepared for illumina-
tion. Fortunately, the electric light has not yet
penetrated to many of the smaller streets, which
are often narrow as gangways. Before each
house there stands a lantern post of unpainted
wood, and the lanterns hanging from them are the
greatest charm of the whole display. Their in-
finite variety is apparently unending. Some are
large as a balloon, some are small as a melon, some

250 Behind the Shoji

are four-sided, some are round, some are shaped
like butterflies, some like fruits, some are decorated
with bright flowers, some with simple ideographs
in black and white. Our Little Brown Allies must
have an inexhaustible imagination, since designs
of this kind are scarcely ever repeated. I myself
saw three million patterns on cheap printed cotton
cloth at the Osaka Exposition, and I have been
told by merchants that even in wall-papers no two
pieces (Japanese wall-paper is usually made in
pieces about fourteen inches long and seven inches
wide) are ever exactly alike, proving that the
artistic sense must have a remarkable vitality to
survive, in cheap things for the use of the common
people, the general spirit of deterioration which
is affecting all the more expensive manufactures.
Street displays, processions, fairs — day fairs
and night fairs (the latter in the glow of artificial
lights simply bewitching) — make up the round
of simple pleasures which still delight the con-
servative section of Kioto society. Like the
Parisians, Our Little Brown Allies' greatest pleas-
ure is open-air idling. I have seen Japanese gen-
tlemen exiled to Korea or China take their families
to picnic on a vacant town lot, or go themselves,

Old-Fashioned Customs 251

in a frock-coat and slouch hat, with a gun on their
shoulder, on shooting expeditions after magpies
in a suburb. But by preference they like mingling
with a crowd.

Now Japanese crowds are like most other Jap-
anese things — they vary greatly with localities.
There are some in which it is unpleasant and even
dangerous to loiter, and these are invariably the
crowds who have adopted the "new civilisation"
with its attendant roughness and rudeness. But
in Kioto even a great gathering of people is always
good-natured and good-humoured, and I know of
no way of filling a fine day more charmingly than
to join a merry throng of Japanese countryfolk
making its way to some temple festival with a
happy mingling of merriment and devotion.

What is their excuse for the outing? Probably
the slightest. Some old belief or fancy still holds
sway. Perhaps a certain temple has a matsuri
in honour of those who are no longer "mankind
people" — in other words, "The August Spirits."
Or some clever priest may be offering charms to
propitiate Baku, the Eater of Dreams, the mar-
vellous creature with the "body of a horse, the
face of a lion, the tusks of an elephant, the tail of

252 Behind the Shoji

a cow, and the feet of a tiger," who gobbles up
nightmares, and whose ungainly figure is some-
times to be seen embroidered on pillows.
d Is the New Year festival approaching? Then
people are out to buy pictures of the Treasure
Ship. Once every year — on New Year's eve —
it sails into port, and at this season "wise virgins"
obtain little pictures of it and put them into
the drawers of their wooden pillows to ensure
a cargo of good fortune.

Is it the Tanabata, the prettiest, the most ro-
mantic of all the feasts? If so, a slender branch
of freshly-cut bamboo, still bearing its leaves but
gaily hung with slips of coloured paper, will be
waving above each house. All those papers are
inscribed with short poems, or if the householder
cannot turn a dainty rhyme, then with the some-
what meaningless phrase, "Ama no kawa" —
River of Heaven. The gods are not particular;
they know the poor pire de famille has done his
best. Indeed, in this case, I hardly think the
celestial beings concerned trouble themselves
much about their worshippers for they are
lovers and naturally engrossed in their own af-
fairs. This is the popular Japanese version of

Old-Fashioned Customs 253

the story as Lafcadio Hearn so exquisitely wrote
it down:

"The great god of the firmament had a lovely
daughter, Tanabata-tsumS, who passed her days in
weaving garments for her august parent. She
rejoiced in her work and thought there was no
greater pleasure than the pleasure of weaving.
But one day, as she sat before her loom at the door
of her heavenly dwelling, she saw a handsome
peasant lad pass by leading an ox, and she fell in
love with him. Her august father, divining her
secret wish, gave her the youth for a husband.
But the wedded lovers became too fond of one
another and neglected their duty to the god of the
firmament ; the sound of the shuttle was no longer
heard and the ox wandered unheeded over the
plains of heaven. Therefore the great god was
displeased and separated the pair. They were
sentenced to live thereafter apart with the Celes-
tial River (the Milky Way) between them; but
it was permitted them to see each other once a
year on the seventh night of the seventh moon
(the date, according to our calendar, falls in the
latter part of August or the first part of Septem-
ber). On that night, providing the skies be

254 Behind the Shoji

clear, the birds make with their bodies and wings
a bridge over the stream, and by means of that
bridge the lovers can meet. But if ^there be' rain,
the River of Heaven rises, and becomes so wide
that the bridge cannot be formed. So the hus-
band and wife cannot always meet even on the
seventh night of the seventh moon; it may hap-
pen that they cannot meet for three or four years
at a time. But their love remains immortally
young and eternally patient." And at this pretty
festival the children of earth pray for fine weather,
and by means of the gay little prayer papers tied
to the bamboo branch, symbolical of the River of
Heaven (which is also called, in the old Chinese
books, the "Bamboo Grove"), show their sym-
pathy and interest in the Herdsman and the
Weaving Lady.

Or perhaps what draws the city to make holiday
is the Boy's festival in May. Ten years ago, like
the Tanabata, it was still universal; yet ten years
more and it will have vanished — though formerly
it was considered of such immense importance
that at this season, above every house where
there was a son, a big brightly-coloured paper fish
floated, tied to a very tall bamboo pole. More

Old-Fashioned Customs 255

than one son meant more than one fish, and some-
times I have seen four or five, varying from twelve
to two feet in length, attached to the same string,
the small ones hooked to the tails of the larger ones.
So cunningly were they fastened that the mouths
were held open, and the wind entering the quiver-
ing gills inflated the bodies and kept them rising
and falling exactly as real fish would do. Some
were made of silk costing fabulous sums like ten
or twenty yen, while others were only brightly-
coloured paper and could be bought for as little
as five sen each. But all were considered equally
symbolical. Even as the Japanese carp ascends
swift rivers against the strongest currents, so the
parents hoped that their sons might win their
way through the world against any obstacles. I
wonder if the reason that fewer fish swim in the
air to-day than in former times is because the
nation is beginning to believe that the new gen-
eration will certainly succeed without the stimulus
of an example?

But if the crowd has gathered for none of these
reasons there is yet another which may have drawn
them out. Perhaps they have gone to worship
Binzeru, the last of all the picturesque survivals,

256 Behind the Shoji

poor, disturbed Binzeru, who once sat on the altar
with the rest of the gods, but was mortal enough
to commit the indiscretion of remarking to his
colleagues on the beauty of a young girl who came
to worship. It was, one would imagine, such a
small, such a pardonable fault for a poor image
whose life must have been dull enough in all con-
science to excuse it. Think of the poor immortal
doomed to lend a perpetual and attentive ear to
hundreds of dull prayers prayed by dull people,
all asking for blessings they had no reason to ex-
pect, and yet forbidden to keep an attentive eye
on his clients. He pleaded extenuating circum-
stances, but the gods proved unforgiving. There
was a horrid scandal, a prodigious wagging of
tongues, and a prompt judgment. Poor Binzeru,
considered unworthy to sit longer with the Celes-
tials, was sentenced to banishment outside the
temple, where he remains to this day. His little
huddled figure has a curious pathos about it which
always strikes me when I see him in Kioto per-
forming his appointed office of healer to the sick.
He now gives himself literally to the people, either
by way of atonement or, as some suggest, with
an intent to revenge. The afflicted, having sore

Old-Fashioned Customs 257

eyes or nose or toes or anything else "rubbable,"
rub his corresponding member first, their own
afterwards, and go home convinced that he has
taken their woes upon his unhappy self. Sir
Frederick Treves, when he saw this primitive
form of faith cure, was amazed. The idea of a
people with scientific hospitals not having more
dread of the propagation of microbes !

But what could be more typical of Our Little
Brown Allies! Half of them sterilise and cau-
terise in the most approved manner; the other half
bring their babies to the temple, rub their dis-
eased eyes with a little spindle lying in front of
the wooden god, then rub Binzeru's eye with the
same spindle and take the children home with
not only the diseases they brought out but one
or two others as well.

A few years more, no doubt, and everybody,
even the simple mothers with their natural lean-
ing towards miracles instead of lotions, will know
better. Poor defaced Binzeru, with your features
almost obliterated by the rubbing of faithful souls,
your days are numbered. You may mean well,
but you are doomed. Although the Immortals
have treated you scurvily, the scientific Japanese
17

258 Behind the Shoji

doctors, " now engaged," as the medical re-
ports say, "in the preparation of a tetanus anti-
toxin," will prove still more unfeeling. Thirty
thousand schools are in conspiracy against you
already under their orders. And alas! not only
against you, who have really brought further
banishment upon yourself, but also upon most of
the pretty beliefs which are your contemporaries.
In a very few years the youngest schoolboy will
know the proper remedy for conjunctivitis, just
as he will know that the nightmares are not sent
by the gods because the Eater of Dreams is hun-
gry, but because those whom they visit are sleep-
ing under too many bed-clothes ; the legend of the
Weaving Maiden and her waiting lover and the
bridge of birds will be believed only by little
children; and the maiden, though longing like her
mother for the good-luck cargo of the Treasure
Ship, will no longer think that the little paper in
the drawer of her wooden pillow can bring it safe
to the desired port.

CHAPTER XIV

SOME REFLECTIONS

'"THE longer one looks behind the Shoji the
* more difficult it becomes to make up one's
mind whether Our Little Brown Allies are three
parts admirable and one part objectionable or
vice versa. Just as some unexpected evidence of
ingratitude, some ridiculous piece of mimicry, or
some ugly streak of treachery makes one ready to
damn them utterly, up crops a winning virtue
which compels admiration. I mentioned this
strange contradictoriness to an English professor
who had taught in Japan for many years, not only
in the accessible cities where the two civilisations
are struggling side by side, but also in the far-away
inaccessible country districts where all is as it was
in the beginning, hazy, vapoury, soft, gentle, and
visionary, where "lotus is still a common article
of diet."

"Tell me," I asked, "why it is that Our Little
259

260 Behind the Shoji

Brown Allies are such a bundle of contradictions?
Granted that there is the natural confusion of the
transition stage through which they are passing,
I cannot think that would be sufficient to account
for all their puzzling changes of front."

"You are right, it would not," was his reply,
"but there is a very easy explanation of the ap-
parent changeableness. The Japanese are not
what the botanists call a ' simple ' people, with one
infallible set of characteristics. They are 'com-
posite.' Like Janus, they are two-faced; or, to be
still more exact, they are 'two-spirited.' You
know that the old Shinto gods are said to have
three distinct spirits, the 'rough,' the 'gentle,' and
the 'bestowing,' respectively termed. Sometimes
in remote villages you will still find the division so
clearly marked that the ' rough spirit ' of a deity is
worshipped at one temple and the 'gentle spirit' at
another. Well, in just the same way mortals are
thought to have two distinct spirits, the Ara-mi-
tama or Rough Spirit, and the Nigimi-tama or
Gentle Spirit, which alternately rule their actions."

"That may account then for the fact that Our
Little Brown Allies have the warmest admirers
and the bitterest enemies in the world?".

Some Reflections 261

"Certainly, for it is unusual when individuals
see both 'spirits.' Those who live long in Japan
or in the Far East generally see the Rough Spirit.
As a result, they feel their love for the people trick-
ling away in a steady stream. Petty annoyances
first draw the cork out of the phial of their affec-
tion, and afterwards, in spite of all their efforts,
nothing can be done to keep the remnant in."

Judging from personal experience I think the
professor must be right. Many a time I have
asked foreigners who have lived all their lives in
Japan to tell me frankly how they liked the peo-
ple. One or two, before answering, asked whether
I meant the generation of Young Japanese or
the older men, and then replied, when I said "the
people as a whole," "The more I see of the new
generation the better I like the old." Others did
not differentiate. "We distrust the nation en-
tirely," they replied. "The rank and file have a
hearty dislike for foreigners and are without the
least spark of gratitude. Not being disinterested
themselves towards other nations, they cannot
fathom any one who is, and seem to suspect us of a
hidden and bad motive if we do anything excep-
tionally kind." "As a matter of fact," one wise

262 Behind the Shoji

old missionary said to me, "there exists at the
present moment a very curious state of affairs
among Our Little Brown Allies. The Govern-
ment is much older than the people, speaking
politically, and the people are much older than the
Government, speaking sociologically. Thus the
Government is on a level with the Governments
of the West, having laws, soldiers, police, etc.
all up-to-date, while the people remain at a stage
of development 'corresponding to that which in
Europe preceded the Christian era by hundreds of
years.' The people, therefore, still feel towards
strangers a vague distrust which is a survival
from ancient times, and though quite willing to
copy the air-cushions and bathing-suits of the
foreigner, would often treat him very cavalierly
did not the Government, with riper judgment in
such matters, step in and tell them not to do so."
To prove his argument, my friend showed me a
copy of the proclamation just issued, preparatory
to the arrival of the American fleet, by the Governor
of Kanagawa Prefecture. The document merits
quoting in full, not only because such a Govern-
mental direction of manners is unknown in the
Western world, but because its English construe-

Some Reflections 263

tion, evidently put together by some half-edu-
cated "student" clerk in the prefectural office, is
as much a curiosity as the sentiments expressed
in it.^

As Regards Foreigners in General

It is ordered:

That people shall not crowd round foreigners in
the streets or in front of the shops.

That shopkeepers shall not charge any excessive
price to foreigners on goods sold.

That when any accident or mishap happens to
foreigner at the railway station, in the train, on
the ship, in the street, advice shall be given to him
that the matter be immediately notified to the
police or the officials.

That another dog shall not be set on, or sticks
or stones thrown at dogs accompanying foreigners.

That courtesy and cordiality be observed in the
treatment of foreigners, especially at any Gov-
ernmental office, a seat shall be given him.

That due recognition must be given to the fact
that it is the custom with foreigners that a gen-
tleman does not take off his hat in an office, a

264 Behind the Shoji

lady does not take off her bonnet even when giving
greeting to others, and a married couple walk
hand-in-hand.

That as foreigners are very anxious about the
avoidance of cruelty to animals, care shall be
taken to treat animals very kindly.

That no comments or ridicule and mean words
shall be given in regard to the dress, bearing, and
words of foreigners.

That when entering the premises or rooms of
a foreigner permission shall be obtained before-
hand from the porter or servant.

That when sitting on the same seat with a
foreign lady in a train, tramcar, or waiting-room,
trunks shall be put down so that any part of the
seat shall not be left unused.

That staring shall not be made at foreigners
except when necessary.

That care shall be taken not to put on dirty
shoes when entering any foreign house.

That impediment shall not be given to the
foreigner at play or on bicycle by throwing
fragments of tile, stone, or stick or by arraying
many children in the street.

That no disrespect shall be displayed towards

Some Reflections 265

foreign religions or words to the same effect shall
be written on the sign-boards of shows.

That it shall be borne in mind that foreigners are
disgusted with the habit of spitting anywhere and
of scattering about the skin of fruits and cigarette
ends in the train or on ship.

That the finger shall not be pointed at foreigner.

That tobacco shall not be smoked in the presence
of the foreign lady, or in any place where decency
commands the avoidance of smoking.

That when a foreign lady enters a room the
gentleman shall take his seat after the lady has
been seated.

That those learning foreign languages shall not
try unnecessary talk with foreigners for the mere
purpose of practising their tongue.

That punctuality shall be observed when dis-
charging any engagement.

That the talk with the foreigner shall be limited
to necessary matters and shall be done in as little
time as possible.

That when visiting a foreigner such time as is
most convenient for him shall be chosen.

That the age of a foreigner shall not be asked
unless some special necessity demands it.

266 Behind the Shoji

That when clearing the teeth or the nostrils in
the presence of a foreigner handkerchief shall be
used.

That whether within or outside the room, legs
and thighs shall not be "exposed in the presence of
a foreigner, and at the same time care shall be
taken not to look at the nude body of a foreigner
when he takes a bath or changes his dress.

That when meeting with (foreign) funeral pro-
cession, due respect shall be paid to it, and any
despising words shall not be uttered.

That the notion shall be destroyed that a for-
eigner pays as much as demanded.

That at such places where foreigners swarm and
at pleasure resorts a notice in some European
language telling of the neighbouring places noted
for views or historic interest shall be posted.

That when accosted by a foreigner, silence shall
be avoided, even if the accosted man cannot un-
derstand the language spoken, and such an answer
as he thinks is proper shall be given in Japanese.

That the collars, cuffs, gloves, and shoes shall
be kept clean.

That when walking with a foreigner pace shall
be kept with him.

Some Reflections 267

That it shall be understood that when a for-
eigner looks at his watch he suggests that he has
some urgent engagement.

On reading this extraordinary "Proclamation,"
I could not but notice two curious points. The
first was the striking ignorance of Our Little Brown
Allies — at least those in Kanagawa Prefecture —
of all the Western habits to which they have given
so much attention and study. Fancy their still
needing to be told that "foreign ladies do not
remove their bonnets even when greeting others,"
or that foreign gentlemen do not care to be stared
at in their baths, or have their ages asked by
passers-by! Fancy the gubernatorial staff still
fondly imagining that European married couples
walk hand-in-hand!

But what is more curious yet, fancy the people,
even if they do not know, calmly submitting to
directions as to when they should use their hand-
kerchiefs and when refrain from giving "an im-
pediment to the foreigner at play or on bicycle by
throwing fragments of tile, stone, or stick" at him.
In any other country the kind of person who would

268 Behind the Shoji

find his amusement in propelling one of these
missiles at the stranger would be unlikely to stop
and think before he did it, "The Government told
me not to."

The quality of personal individualism, how-
ever, makes no appeal to Our Little Brown Allies,
and is therefore non-existent, its place being
taken by a national mdividuality so strong that
although it is an attribute of the ungrateful,
contemptuous, pushing, Japan-for-the-Japanese
Rough Spirit, one cannot but admire it.

On the topic of duty the entire people has one
mind — the mind of those in authority over them.
They are quite willing to suffer criticism, to sup-
press their personal desires for the well-being of the
nation, and that quality will some day make them
dangerous, for a people with one idea is always
dangerous.

For example, though it is a penal offence, un-
der Japanese law, for a man to be a Freemason,
as all the proceedings of all societies in Japan must
remain open to official surveillance, we have seen
Marquis Hayashi allowed to join the ranks of the
prescribed order because it was thought that the
great influence of the Masonic body would thus

Some Reflections 269

more likely be exerted in favour of Japan against
Russia, where the craft is prohibited and no ex-
ceptions are made. Of course, scores of Japanese
joined all the churches in America — including
Dowie's — to spread the Japanese view of the late
war. And I happen to remember that, in a cer-
tain foreign port in China, a Japanese actually
tried to become a Jew and draw, as it were, the
sympathies of the powerful financial groups more
closely towards his country. An article in Israel's
Messenger described how at first the young would-
be convert was very coldly received, but the ap-
plicant was "nevertheless undaunted." [I can
easily believe that, having seen the aggravating
persistence of Our Little Brown Allies in things
both large and small.] In short, after] a time,
either his sincerity could no longer be doubted, or
the religious community saw the hopelessness of
combating such a determination — take it which-
ever way you like — and he was accordingly
accepted as a member of the Jewish faith and
baptised under the name of "Isaac." At last ac-
counts he was "making very good progress in
Hebrew."
What next? one wonders. Shall we see Our

270 Behind the Shoji

Little Brown Allies joining St. Andrew's and St.
Patrick's societies all over the Far East, and roll-
ing up on 30th November and 17th March in kilts
and shillelaghs?

They are quite capable of doing so for the good
of the cause. Precedents exist in individual
cases; just as quaint things have been done al-
ready. There was the youthful artist who sat all
day on the roof of a public bath-house because he
belonged to a Government art school and wanted
to keep up his country's reputation for success in
"life classes." Unfortunately he forgot to notify
the police-station of his laudable intentions, and
one evening at sundown an officer of the law,
misjudging his motives and thinking him a burglar,
crept up to him, as the newspaper said, "with cat-
like tread and laid hold of him as a suspicious
individual." So deeply offended was the youth at
the manner in which his noble purpose had been
misinterpreted that he further aggravated his
offence by remaining silent before the judge, until
the blacksmith, to whom he was apprenticed, came
and gave evidence that he was a steady character
and not a kleptomaniac. "Then for what pur-
pose were you on the roof?" sternly demanded the

Some Reflections 271

official, giving the lad one more chance to clear
himself. The youth blushed, hesitated, finally
explained, in halting sentences, that he was an
artist-patriot in his spare moments, when black-
smithing was slack, and that he made a specialty
of the female nude, "the female body appealing
to him on account of its soft and graceful lines."
Owing to the difficulty of obtaining a good model,
as he was too poor to hire one, he hit upon the
original device of obtaining glimpses of the "fe-
male form divine" by peeping into a bath-house
as the ladies were emerging from their ablutions.
He would have preferred, he confessed, to stand
in the doorway or look through a window, as his
position upon the tiles was both uncomfortable
and inelegant. But, doors and windows being
modestly closed, he was perforce obliged to seek a
vantage point on the roof, where he had appar-
ently made good use of a crack in the tiles, for he
produced in court some spirited sketches of ladies
reaching round for their towels or slipping into the
water. Like that other youth who was found
in the music-room of a German mail steamer
measuring chairs, tables, etc., because his master
was about to build liners for the Japanese Govern-

272 Behind the Shoji

ment and wanted to know how to furnish them,
this enthusiastic youth was let off with a repri-
mand and told not to do it again.

The Rough Spirit among Our Little Brown
Allies is the one which has discovered that the
"doors of opportunity are labelled Push and Pull,"
and if, of late years, it has tended to overshadow
the Gentle Spirit, this is because "capacity for
aggression and cunning" are necessary for races
who would hold their own in the world against
nations hardened by the discipline of competition.
The qualities most necessary for practical success
in life according to Western standards are just
those qualities wanting in the old Japanese civilisa-
tion — a civilisation dominated in all things by the
Gentle Spirit, which condemned competition and
large success snatched by the strong at the ex-
pense of the weak. Consequently, without doubt,
Young Japan will have to rely upon the least
amiable qualities of her character for her success
in the universal struggle.

Enough of the Gentle Spirit is still left, how-
ever, to win for Our Little Brown Allies warm
friends and ardent admirers whose judgment seems
in some cases totally blinded by their admiration.

Some Reflections 273

Why? Simply because what is left of the older
life is full of charm unspeakable and of illusion.
Usually these admirers do not live in the country
but feel the spell through poetical descriptions of
Bushido and the Yamato Spirit, or poetic ac-
counts of surface delights, like "matted floors clean
enough to eat off," and "dainty little ladies who
live in dolls' houses," etc., the picturesque surface
being always most carefully presented.

A very few, like my friend the professor, love the
country and suffer the new-fashioned people for
the sake of some village of the gods which remains
as it was in the beginning. "What I love in
Japan," said Hearn, after a long sojourn in Matsue,
"is the Japanese — the poor simple humanity of
the country. There is nothing in the world ap-
proaching the natural, naive charm of their civil-
isation. It makes the old men divine — such a
contrast to the new Japanese; there is an ugly,
distorted quality about him which makes him a
unique monster; he is like an awry caricature
of a Western mean fellow."

Matsue is in the province of Idzumo, where
the most perfect old-style communities still exist.
I can call to mind one specially delightful village
18

274 Behind the Shoji

hidden away in the folds of the hills. No railway-
approaches it, and the journey there must be
made by pack-horse over unbeaten tracks. A
seat high up on sweet, swaying, new-mown grass
seems at first precarious enough, but the Jap-
anese pack-horses are sure-footed because of the
straw waraji which swaddle their feet. These
straw shoes are replaced by the buxom, red-
cheeked peasant girl in charge every few miles, as
they wear through with monotonous regularity,
and from this constant re-shoeing comes the odd
Japanese custom of measuring distance by sandal
lengths. "In how many waraji shall we reach
our journey's end?" the impatient traveller asks.
In a day's march we are there — welcomed to
some wood - cutter's cottage with the charm of
manner of ancient times. We squat on the mats
about the sunken kitchen fireplace, which, I must
confess, smokes horribly, and receive the coarse
"evening rice" in a gently-regulated precedence
once punctiliously enforced in every household
in the country, the richest as well as the poorest.
Being the honourable guest, I am served first.
Next come the grandparents, withered and brown
as old ivory carvings. After they have received

Some Reflections 275

their portion the sequence is interrupted for the
three-year-old baby-san (who could scarcely be
expected to wait for etiquette) but is resumed when
the father is served, then the oldest son, then the
mother, and last of all the second son, whom the
peasants jestingly name Master Cold Rice (Hi-
ameshi t San). We eat in silence, as custom dis-
courages frivolous remarks at meal-times, and
having eaten and smoked tiny pipes we retire to
our "obedient" — though uncomfortable — beds.

At sunrise all are astir again. The wood-cutters
start off in search of faggots, calling to me the
polite phrase, "Ohayo," ("It is honourably
early") as they pass. The children gather at
the little schoolhouse, the women attend to house-
hold duties or work on the tiny farms. Day
by day the same round is trodden — except when
some festival at the " Ujigami" — parish temple
— makes a break in their simple lives. No dis-
content, no striving, no restlessness mars the
harmony of the scene. I notice that the Govern-
ment controls the village very fitfully, that it is
left largely to its own devices. If quarrels disturb
this simple society they are settled, with grim
justice, by a council of elders. A father, I was

276 Behind the Shoji

told, had just lately killed his son for disobedience,
but as public opinion found the action justifiable
it was not reported to the Government authorities.
On the other hand, when a son, to whom his
parents had voluntarily surrendered the head-
ship of the family, misused his newly-acquired
power to turn his father out of doors, punishment
fell on him swift and sure. The villagers, how-
ever, dwelt with pardonable pride on the fact that
this was the only case of filial impiety within the
memory of the oldest inhabitant.

They pride themselves on keeping intact the
simplicity of the old customs, the amiability of
manners, and the strange power of presenting out-
wardly the best aspects of character. A simple
trust in the gods is still the motive power of their
actions, and a worship of the dead the foundation
of their beliefs. No half-education tempts them
to a servile imitation of Western ways ; they choose
to ignore the mimicry of Young Japan. They
want none of her copied manufactures; they want
none of her superficial culture. Mentally and
morally they strongly resist Western influence.
In fact, the only point at which their way of
thought touches hers is in the curious cult of

Some Reflections 277

loyalty. They, like the new generation, are
ready to make a necessary personal sacrifice for
the common good. They are ready to fight
for a civilisation they care little to adopt.

Where the national honour, success, or pros-
perity, the national "good name," is concerned
the Rough and Gentle Spirits join forces in a
common cause. Naturally each desires to gain
the great end in a different way, but it seems cer-
tain now that the rougher way must prevail, and
therefore, sooner or later, the Gentle Spirit, with
proverbial gentleness, will efface itself at need,
though well aware of the cost — the incalculable
cost in beauty, refinement, courtesy which must
be paid.

THE END

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by the same depth of feeling, wealth of
imagination, and sincerity of art which
appeal so strongly in the earlier book.
While in no sense a sequel to The Rosary,
acquaintance is renewed with Myra (the
Mistress of Shenstone), Jane, and other
old friends.

Cr. 800. $1.35 net. By mail, $1.50

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS

NEW YORK LONDON

By the Author of "Judith of the Cumberlands "

The Sword in the
Mountains

By Alice MacGowan

Author of " The Wiving of Lance Cleaverage," etc.

This is another of Miss MacGowan's striking
stories of the Cumberland Mountains, which is
likely to excel in interest and popularity anything
the author has yet written. It has as a background
the peculiar conditions that prevailed on the border-
land between North and South before and at the
time of the Civil War. Always the master of pic-
turesque description, Miss MacGowan has found
in this tale and period an opportunity for the por-
trayal of situations of unusual dramatic value ; and
her readers need hardly be told that she has made
the most and best of them. Some of the historic
incidents which she introduces are unsurpassed in
the annals of the great war.

With 5 Full-page Illustrations in Color by Robert

Edwards and Decorations by W. J. Wilson

Crown 8vo. $1.35 net. ($1.50 by rnail)

G. P. Putnam's Sons

New York London

Myrtle Reed's New Novel

MASTER OF THE
VINEYARD

BY MYRTLE REED

Author of " Old Rose and Silver," " Lavender and Old Lace," etc.

There is probably no other living writer whose
books have the extraordinary popularity of Myrtle
Reed's.

There is always a large circle of readers waiting
for each of her new books as it appears. But the
remarkable feature of Miss Reed's popularity is
that each one of her books continues to show in-
creasing sales every year. The more the public
has of them, the more it wants. This can be said
of no other fiction of the day.

Miss Reed's stories are always charming, but her
latest book is something more than this. The
humor is delightful, and the panorama of life, with
its well-balanced picturing of lights and shadows,
possesses the quality best-named fascination.

With Frontispiece in Color by Bleadon Campbell, Crown 8rot

beautifully printed and bound, Cloth, $1,50 net, Full

Red Leather, $2,00 net. Antique Call, $2.50 net

Lavender Silk, $3,50 net

Uniform witH " Lavender and Old Lace "

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS

NEW YORK LONDON